


nothing scares you about me and you

by verseau



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fingering, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-07-30 21:08:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 26,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20103652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verseau/pseuds/verseau
Summary: Jongin burrows closer to Kyungsoo under the comforters. He gets weird during preheat. All his body knows or wants is Kyungsoo, his scent, his body warm and solid beneath Jongin’s fingers. /// Jongin is unintentionally cruel, Kyungsoo is intentionally stupid, and Baekhyun knew this was a bad idea from the start.





	1. when you move, i'm moved

**Author's Note:**

> started this months ago, depression hit, then kyungsoo basically died twice, then i saw the recent pics of jongin's 2004 usher cosplay and felt phantom loss for the strap he deserves. most unrealistic thing here is how oblivious jongin is. no, not the abo, yes, that jongin could hurt anyone's feelings. / title is about kyungsoo; sunlight by hozier & movement by hozier are from kyungsoo's pov; chapter titles will also be his pov.

Jongin probably should learn to knock. It’s just that, well, he doesn’t want to. He resents the idea that he needs to knock in his own home for his own best friend’s room. They share bills. They can share doors. 

All he planned for today, after classes, was marathoning Reply 1988 for the seventeenth time and pretending that Kim Woobin is his alpha. But as soon as he got off the elevator, four doors down, he could smell the scent of another omega with too strong perfume and the stench of arousal over the man who actually is his alpha. 

“He’s not your alpha,” Baekhyun says on the phone. “Who cares if he’s—” but Jongin doesn’t hear the rest of Baekhyun’s sentence, because he turns the knob on Kyungsoo’s room and opens it, stares at the—ridiculous, terrible, horrible sight in front of him. 

Kyungsoo is sat on his desk chair, legs spread wide, t-shirt bunched up around his waist. There’s that smelly omega, on their knees in between Kyungsoo’s leg, hands resting on the sides of the chair, mouth spread wide—too wide. What the fuck. What the fuck. Kyungsoo is sweaty and panting, hands running through the other omega’s hair while they—get their mouth—God, Kyungsoo is knotting their _mouth_ where Jongin can see, tears running down the other omega’s eyes, mouth wet with drool and Kyungsoo’s come leaking out. These are not safe sex practices. What the fuck. 

“What the fuck,” Jongin says. His neck prickles. “Why is there another omega in my home?”

“Oh my fucking—Jongin, get out,” Kyungsoo hisses. He almost looks like he might get up and push Jongin out of the door, but then he must remember the—position. That he is in. 

“I can’t believe this,” Jongin says. 

“_Jongin_,” Kyungsoo repeats, and his eyes flash, that stupid alpha command that he knows Jongin hates in his voice. 

“It’s not that deep,” Jongin mumbles, but he leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. 

On the phone, Baekhyun laughs. “Dude, you’re literally insane.”

“He knows I hate that!” Jongin replies, maybe too loud. “The scent will never get out now, and we just cleaned two days ago.”

“I can’t believe there are people who think you’re cool and mysterious,” Baekhyun says. “How do you not knock? You knew.”

“I pay bills here, I can open whatever doors I want,” Jongin says, sulking into the kitchen to heat up the lunch Kyungsoo made for him. They’re back on meal prep, now that the semester is in full swing, but Jongin hopes he can convince Kyungsoo to make beef on Saturday after he gets off work. 

“That wouldn’t fly with anyone but Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun says. “When you guys realize that you’re each other’s mates, it’ll be, how do the youths say, lit?”

“Kyungsoo is my best friend.” He throws a metal spoon into the sink and hopes it pisses him off. He slams a cabinet shut. “Anything else is just you projecting.”

“I thought Yixing was just my friend, too,” Baekhyun sing songs. “You never know when the universe will make it hit, might as well help her along.”

“The universe is an alpha, because all she does is fuck me over,” Jongin says. He slams the microwave shut. He tries so hard to ignore the smell of sex and desire permeating throughout their apartment, but his mind fixates on Kyungsoo’s scent like nothing else, and Jongin usually loves that; hates it now. 

“Oh, that was a good one, it’s mine now.” Baekhyun says. Last Jongin heard, Baekhyun was in the library, pretending to do work and playing the Sims instead. He’s probably still doing that. “Instagram bio?”

Jongin slams his soft tofu stew and rice on the countertop and leans against it to eat. “Obviously, I know that he’s not my alpha in the romantic, mated sense—“

“—so he’s not your alpha—“

“—but my instincts and my body recognize him as mine in a platonic, reasonable way. I thought we agreed to hooking up outside of our apartment.”

“Didn’t you call Minho at two AM last week to come over and knot you?” Baekhyun asks.

“That’s different,” Jongin says, mouth full of rice. Kyungsoo would chastise him if he wasn’t knotting some stranger’s mouth in Jongin’s home. “Minho’s my friend, his scent isn’t totally new to our apartment.” 

“One day, Kyungsoo will snap and murder you,” Baekhyun says.

“Alphas just don’t deserve the same rights as us,” Jongin says. “Tell me one thing they do successfully other than disappoint.” Maybe his voice is too loud. Kyungsoo has great hearing, probably his best animal instinct other than nurturing, but Jongin likes amping it up to be difficult sometimes. Most of the time.

Baekhyun says, “I’ll be on the news, like, ‘I can’t believe this would happen, Kyungsoo never showed any signs of murder’ but the detectives will know I’m lying because they’re listening to our conversation right now.”

“Kyungsoo is the softest alpha in the world,” Jongin says. “He’s not some brainless knothead like half of the guys and girls you date.”

Kyungsoo’s room door opens. Jongin has the perfect vantage point to watch, perhaps on purpose. He squints as he chews on bean sprouts. “But I guess I’d prefer an idiot over a traitor,” says Jongin. Kyungsoo walks out first, topless and with his black sweatpants hanging low on his soft hips, face flushed and eyes annoyed. The other omega walks out right after, dressed and cleaned up, avoiding Jongin’s eyes. 

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo greets, or maybe Jongin pretends it’s a greeting and not a threat. Alphas do get sensitive when they get called soft, especially right after knotting. Which Kyungsoo did. In someone’s mouth. In Jongin’s _home_. Jongin takes a big mouthful of broth. “This is Chaehyun. Chaehyun, this is Jongin, my roommate.”

“Am I no longer your best friend?” Jongin asks. Kyungsoo narrows his eyes. Jongin pouts. 

“I’m going to walk them out,” says Kyungsoo, and grabs Jongin’s hoodie on the couch, but then Chaehyun, their mouth swollen and wet, says, “it’s fine, I can go myself. Call me?” Kyungsoo nods, leans in to kiss Chaehyun and rubs his thumb over their jaw. Gross. Jongin hates public displays of affection. 

After Chaehyun leaves, Jongin hangs up on a laughing Baekhyun and beckons Kyungsoo. “C’mere.”

“Why should I?” 

Jongin frowns. “Kyungsoo-yah.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes, but he comes over all the same. “What?”

“Was that the guy you’ve been talking to?”

“Person. Not guy, they don’t like that. But yes, that’s them.”

Jongin’s nose scrunches. “They smell weird.”

“Are you serious or fucking with me?”

“My fragile, delicate omega senses can’t take it,” Jongin says, running his hand through his hair. 

“I’m giving Yixing the application for number one best friend,” Kyungsoo says, pointing a finger at him. He tries walking past Jongin, but Jongin drapes himself over Kyungsoo’s back, his hand drifting down to Kyungsoo’s ass and squeezing in consolation. 

“But your ass only knows me, imagine how sad he’ll be if you cheat.” He squeezes again. 

Kyungsoo laughs. Jongin swears he arches his back. Yes, he wins. 

-

“Pass me the pepper,” Yixing says, reaching over to take it from Sehun. “Thank you, honey.” He grins. “Get it? I said English for honey, and—“

“You sound like Junmyeon,” Kyungsoo says, picking the onions off his plate with his chopsticks and dropping them onto Jongin’s. Jongin kind of doesn’t like onions, but he doesn’t mind the background texture in his fried rice. Kyungsoo can’t tolerate even that. He never asks for his meals without, though, more dedicated to the flavor than he is to an easy meal. Even for takeout. He’s so dramatic about food. 

“Or Minseokie hyung,” Jongin adds. They both high five Yixing. 

“Ah, the way age creeps up on you,” Baekhyun sighs. They’re spread out across Minseok’s living room, Chinese takeout passed around with the best/worst box wine Yixing’s money could buy. Minseok is Jongin’s first, like, actual rich friend, since Jongin is a literature major and gay barista and spends a solid eighty percent of his day talking about Marx and killing rich people, but he loves Minseok and he loves his too-big-for-a-millennial apartment. It helps that he’s rich because his dad does incredible cookbooks and his mom is a doctor, rather than because of the usual flesh-eating, blood-sucking habits of most rich people. 

He digresses—they’re in Minseok’s house, and it is big. End quote. 

“Yes, baby, those grey hairs under your bangs are catching up to you rather quickly,” Yixing answers, grinning at Baekhyun. 

“Baekhyun has hair under his bangs?” Chanyeol, Sehun and Kyungsoo’s beta best friend, asks. “I thought that was a transplant.” 

“None of you are as funny as you think you are, and definitely not as funny as me,” Baekhyun says. 

“No one would want to be as funny as you are,” Minseok says, a leg crossed over his thigh as he nibbles on a beef stick. “We’re already better.”

“Oh, okay,” Baekhyun says. “So everyone walked in and was jealous of me and decided that it was gonna be fuck Baekhyun day, huh?” 

Yixing squeezes his thigh. “I’d fuck you any day,” he says sincerely, leaning close to peck Baekhyun on the corner of his lip. Even though it’s kind of backhanded, Yixing’s contribution, Baekhyun smiles that wide goofy smile he gets whenever Yixing is especially cheesy. 

“Oh, I hate couples,” Sehun says from where he’s resting back on Junmyeon’s shoulder, barely sparing everyone else a gaze as he browses his phone and shows Junmyeon funny things. “What kind of freak falls in love?”

“I hate being around mated pairs,” Jongin complains, “you’re all so annoying.” 

“Please remember this the next time you need a favor,” Junmyeon says.

“Which will be in, what, fifteen minutes?” Chanyeol adds.

Jonggin bares his teeth. See, this is why they suck. Except—”you, Chanyeol? You’ve been single longer than Kyungsoo.”

“Hey,” Kyungsoo protests absentmindedly. He’s on his phone, too, scrolling for meal prep recipe ideas on Pinterest, the nerd. “I’m not even—oh, Jongin-ah, you want shrimp tacos this week?”

Jongin nods and leans his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “Doesn’t even matter that you all suck, ‘cause I only need Kyungsoo, anyway.”

“A little too much,” Baekhyun says around a mouthful of food. Jongin flips him off.

-

“Alpha,” Jongin says, burrowing closer to Kyungsoo under the comforters. He gets weird during preheat. All his body knows or wants is Kyungsoo, his scent, his body warm and solid beneath Jongin’s fingers. Everything he wears right now is Kyungsoo’s, the thin t-shirt, the hoodie, the threadbare boxer shorts. All are old, but that just means that Kyungsoo’s scent is permeated and inescapable even after many washes, and Jongin loves that. He needs that. 

“Yeah, sweetheart?” Kyungsoo’s voice is so soft. He plays with Jongin’s hair, careful and soothing through the silver-grey hair, fingers massaging Jongin’s scalp. It feels so good. Jongin feels dreamy, out of this world, like all that exists is this warm slice of time, this hazy happiness. How can he spend his heat with another alpha when all his body wants is this one, all he wants is Kyungsoo. 

“Don’t want another alpha,” Jongin mumbles, “just you.”

Kyungsoo sighs and pulls Jongin in closer. This is good, the way Jongin’s room combines his and Kyungsoo’s scents. This is their home, it is, and Kyungsoo is—God, He’s Kyungsoo’s omega, isn’t he? Does Kyungsoo know that? 

“I’m your omega,” Jongin sighs, stretching, face hidden in Kyungsoo’s neck. “Right?”

Kyungsoo says something that sounds like, “then why are you always with other alphas?” but that can’t be right, it can’t, because all Jongin wants is him. 

“I only want you,” says Jongin. He doesn’t know how to be clearer than that. 

“Sure, baby,” Kyungsoo says. Does he not believe Jongin? What the hell. What else is there but this?

“I am your baby, hyung.” He presses his lips to Kyungsoo’s Adam’s apple, the warm graininess of his skin when it goosebumps at Jongin’s touch. “You gonna mate me?”

“Ah, fuck, Jongin,” Kyungsoo inhales. “You can’t just say that.”

“I bet your knot is perfect for me,” Jongin whispers against Kyungsoo’s skin. “I’ll be so much better than those other omegas because I was made for you.”

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo breathes. 

Jongin hides his smile. He lowers his head, right down to the hotspot of smell at Kyungsoo’s armpit; Kyungsoo blushes when Jongin nestles there, but Jongin loves it, loves the heat and musk, the unfiltered smell of body and alpha and home. Kyungsoo pulls his hair, just a tug, a light reminder, but the endorphins that rush through Jongin’s body almost wipe him out. It’s like—now he can sleep, now that his alpha has hold of him, the perfect warm grip. “When I have kids,” Jongin slurs, halfway asleep, “they gotta be yours.” He drifts off, but he feels the tense line of Kyungsoo’s body, the way his breath hitches and he releases scent markers so strong Jongin will smell like him for days. Good. That’s what he wants. 

-

“Ugh,” Jongin groans the next morning, forcing himself to pull his face out of Kyungsoo’s armpit, aware in the daylight that it’s a bad idea and overall unpleasant. It takes him more time that he’s comfortable admitting to make this awareness reality. 

Kyungsoo makes a sleepy noise, following Jongin’s body heat when he starts to pull away. Jongin is careful not to jostle him much, but Kyungsoo is a clingy sleeper, and Jongin has to climb out of the strange tangle of their—of his bed. 

Kyungsoo blinks his eyes open when Jongin breaks all contact. His hair is messy and his eyes look dry and puffy, probably forgot to take his contacts off last night when Jongin started demanding they go to bed. He is so pretty. Jongin has the prettiest mate in the world. 

God. Best friend. The scent markers make him forget, every time, the actual boundaries of their relationship. They’re nowhere near mates. 

“Where ya going?” Kyungsoo asks, voice soft and slurred with sleep. Jesus, he reeks of Jongin. 

“Uh,” Jongin says, trying to think of what answer he can give that’s not, like, I’m gonna go crash back asleep at Sehun’s until I stop being so clingy. Kyungsoo, though he never shows it or complains, would not like that. “Sorry for being so clingy. You know I’m, like, so out of it when I’m nesting, it’s ridiculous,” he lies, knowing that they both hear the skip in his pulse, the hitch of breath. 

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says, more awake now. 

“Okay,” Jongin repeats. He blinks. “Is that all?”

Kyungsoo tilts his head. “I don’t know. Do you have something to add?”

“No, of course not, I mean my apology.” He clears his throat. “Cool, I’m gonna go hang out with Sehun for… for a bit. Just until I’m less, you know, and not throwing my scent everywhere.”

Kyungsoo nods slowly. Then, “text me in advance if you plan on coming back smelling like another alpha.”

“What?” Jongin breathes, his pulse jumping. Something in his mouth tastes wrong. That Kyungsoo would think, would say that. He’s still—Kyungsoo knows how he gets, why would he assume that—

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo says. Jongin jolts back into the present. Ah. His scent. He scratches the back of his neck, hot with embarrassment. “Just tell me, please. So I can prepare and adjust for it. It’s—difficult.” He pauses. “You have a habit of not warning me. So. Please.”

“I’m not… I’m just going to Sehun’s,” he says. 

“Sure,” Kyungsoo says. He covers his head with the comforter. “Close the door, please.” Kyungsoo’s scent is off, sour, and Jongin doesn’t even know why. When he leaves, he closes the door. 

-

“I think Kyungsoo’s mad at me,” Jongin says a few hours later, a little tipsy from the beer they had with their chicken, slouched down with his legs spread on Sehun’s couch. They played video games for a while, Baekhyun too excited over Mario Kart and Junmyeon beyond terrible, but now they’re catching up on the frustrating Chinese drama on Netflix that Sehun is obsessed with. 

“Wow,” Sehun says. “What a shock.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jongin asks, glancing up from Instagram. Johnny is playing the long game and asking for a date even though Jongin was sure he was the hook-up only type, and it’s amusing, watching him try hard not to turn their texting sexual. 

“I mean, you’re in preheat, aren’t you?” Junmyeon asks. 

Jongin bristles. “Kyungsoo isn’t some chauvinistic alpha asshole, why the fuck would my preheat make him angry?”

Baekhyun laughs, pushing his shoulder. “Claws down, I can practically feel your eyes flashing. Are you seriously unaware of how you are with him when you’re deep in it?”

“Clingy,” Jongin says. “Like some omegas are.”

“You’re more than clingy,” Sehun snorts. 

“Obviously, the friend zone doesn’t exist,” says Junmyeon, chewing on tortilla chips, “but it’s gotta mess with his wolf, at the very least, if you all but claim him every few months but then come back home smelling like another alpha’s been in you.” 

“You’re making it sound like I’m a manipulative slut,” Jongin says. 

Sehun throws a tortilla chip at Jongin. “Don’t put words into Jun’s mouth. What did you do with Kyungsoo last night?”

Jongin tries not to blush, but his ears get warm, and he’s just glad that he doesn’t have the same revealing paleness as Junmyeon or Sehun. “Just cuddled. We always cuddle, that’s not a preheat specific thing.”

“You’re wearing his clothes,” Sehun says. Jongin shifts, conscious of the tightness of this hoodie around his shoulders. Ah, he’s even in Kyungsoo’s boxers, when did that happen.

“He’s my best friend and roommate.”

“We all know you nested, stop fucking around,” Baekhyun tells him. 

“Is that a crime?” Jongin asks. “Am I banned for life from ever touching my best friend just because he’s an alpha?”

“What did you tell him?” Junmyeon asks. “I know you remember, so don’t pretend that you don’t to save face.”

“Well, I really don’t—“ Junmyeon raises both eyebrows in undue judgement. “—see how that’s any of your business.”

“Map it out.” Baekhyun shifts to face Jongin more directly. “On a normal day, you make a thousand jokes about how you two are basically platonic mates. You wear his clothes, you nest with him, you probably told him he’s your alpha while under him, neck bared and eyes flashing. That's what I do with Yixing, who is my literal destined mate. Imagine I did all of that and then left first thing in the morning, which you always do, and then I hooked up with someone else. It means something that you reek of Kyungsoo, like he’s all but been in you, and then the, like…” He pauses, tilting his head in consideration. “The challenge, maybe, of knowing that another alpha knows that I’m Yixing’s, literally impossible to ignore, and then I let them fuck me anyway.”

“Okay,” Jongin says. He swallows. “But I’m not Kyungsoo’s, and I’m very against belonging to anyone but myself. So thanks for the essay, but I didn’t really need it.” He rotates his shoulders, stretches out the impending itch that grows and grows the closer he gets to heat. A Reddit thread said it’s in preparation of presentation, the rising need to be pushed face down and fucked, held down and ridden. There were a lot of alphas in that thread, so Jongin is hesitant to accept it as full truth, but fuck, he’s horny, and he does want to be held down and fucked.

“Then why are you so angry when Kyungsoo sleeps with other omegas?” Baekhyun asks. 

“When have I ever actually been mad?” He continues before Baekhyun can intercept, “obviously I’m joking when I pretend to be pissed, I just don’t like foreign scents in our place. I don’t care what he does outside of it. I’m happy when he’s happy.”

Junmyeon snorts. “Then who’s he seeing now? Do you know their name?” 

“They’re just sleeping together, it’s not like they’re dating and I have to know.” Johnny messages him again, maybe because Jongin replied more than half an hour ago. He hates the active feature, but he’s too invested now to turn it off. _What you up to?_

“I don’t know, seemed kinda serious last time we spoke about it,” says Baekhyun. On screen, the lead couple breaks up for the fifth time because of the evil rich parent. Jongin focuses on that instead of the sick feeling in his throat. He’s bored of this conversation. He glances down at his phone. _Are you still in your dorm? _

Johnny replies, _I’m in an apartment now! and my rm8 is out :)_. Jongin is sure that “rm8” took more time than just roommate, but Johnny is a sweetheart and a great lay; gentle and warm in a way that reminds Jongin of Kyungsoo, kind of, except maybe… without the hookup part. Obviously. _Text me the address, maybe we can watch a movie and get ramyeon after?_

“I’m gonna go hang out with Johnny,” Jongin says after a bit, tuning back into the ongoing conversation and the spirited debate on whether the lead deserves the boy. 

“Glad to know our talk was useless,” Sehun says. 

“He’s nice,” Jongin defends. “I like him as a person, not just a knot. Very few alphas that I consider full people, as you know.”

“There are maybe three alphas I’d spit on if they were on fire,” Baekhyun agrees. And he’s a beta, which shows how impossible alphas are. 

“Am I one of them?” Junmyeon asks. Baekhyun hums noncommittally, and laughs when Junmyeon throws the remote at him. 

“I don’t think you should nest with Kyungsoo tonight if you’re gonna go “hang,”” and Junmyeon does the air quotes and all, the asshole, “with Johnny.”

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin reminds them, “is my best friend. Believe it or not, alphas and omegas can be friends. It is 2019, hyung.”

“Give up,” Sehun drawls, resting his head on Jongin’s thigh. “Nini’s a big boy who can make his own decisions and his own mistakes.” He pauses. “A lot of alphas are into the whole stereotypically oblivious omega thing. Maybe it’s a ploy.”

“You’re how I know omega solidarity is a myth,” Jongin says. 

-

The moment Jongin’s settles inside, sat on Johnny’s bed and scrolling through Hulu to see his show lineup, Johnny asks him, “you’re not, uh… like, you’re single, right, hyung? You were last time, right, but I’m not, like, into cheating. I do really wanna hang out with you, but not if, there’s…” He trails off while Jongin squints at the television mounted on the opposite wall. 

“I’m not a cheater,” he says, unsure where to begin. 

“Okay, cool! I must’ve misunderstood before, but being friends is also super cool! I actually do like watching these shows.” He grins. God, he’s so hot, and he thinks that Jongin is…? What, exactly? Doesn’t want to fuck him?

“I mean, I’m single,” Jongin corrects. “I’m not dating anyone.” Fuck the pretense. He has to catch up on half of these with Kyungsoo, anyway, and Kyungsoo gets so mad when Jongin skips ahead without him. He climbs onto Johnny’s lap, legs stretched tight over his shorts—Kyungsoo’s shorts, the shorts he’s wearing, whatever, pushing his hair back from his forehead. “I think you understood correctly before.”

Johnny licks his lips, looking up at Jongin with wide eyes. His hands hover over Jongin’s hips but hesitate with contact; Jongin places then for him, relaxing a little at the touch. Fuck, he’s so turned on; he fumbles to expect how bad his actual heat will be. 

“It’s just that you reek, well, smell, sorry, hyung, I shouldn’t have used that term before, but you smell like another alpha. Like. Really strong. And they smell kinda familiar, so I don’t wanna… betray someone. But I’m gonna trust you. That you’re single.”

Jongin curls a palm over Johnny’s neck. “That’s just my best friend. We’re roommates.” He rubs his thumb over the sensitive skin behind Johnny’s ear, the mating gland that makes alphas breathless and wild. Johnny’s pupils dilate, a thin ring of red around the edges of his vision. 

“Oh,” Johnny breathes. His hands tighten on Jongin’s hips. 

“I’m in preheat,” Jongin tells him. 

“I can—“ Johnny clears his throat. “Yes. I can tell.”

“Do you have knotting condoms?” Beneath him, Johnny swells, so fast it almost gives Jongin whiplash. “‘Cause I’d really like it if you knotted me.”

“Fuck,” he says. “How are you the hottest person on the planet?”

Jongin smirks. “I can be whatever you say I am.”

-

_Are you still at sehuns?_

_Thanks for the answer_  
_I called him and he said you’re with Johnny, are you planning on coming home soon?_

_Okay. I’m spending the night at Chaehyun’s_  
_Pls don’t put my clothes back in my room if you did whatever w Johnny. _


	2. we'll knock around and see if you're all i need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really into heats beyond the standard fuck or die trope. which, while those can be really well-written, it takes a lot of work to get around issues of consent and the kind of, like, status it puts on omegas if they're so literally reliant on alphas. also abo can be so cis male-centric which i guess is the unfortunate nature of like cis male-centric fic, but i think there needs to be more discussion around how alphas w vaginas would work w heat requirements; i have a few theories but i'm a little embarrassed how much thought i put into it. but i guess my point is that i'm interested in, like, preheats and nesting, and viewing the biggest need as intimacy, as closeness, as the sort of vulnerability that i guess in abo verse would foster enough comfort and safeness that you'd want to procreate w that person? and thinking of mates as an underlying awareness of life, even if it's not the main pressing focus as w soulmate specific fics. 
> 
> but i'm also really devoted to omegas (read: jongin) Needing to get knotted. i am not progressive enough to pretend i or any of us are here for anything other than jongin getting knotted. so i try to balance that here. like sure intimacy is cool, but so is slightly degrading dirty talk and fingering. i guess what i'm trying to say is i'm obsessed with tenderness, but i'm also horny. so really what i'm saying is i'm gay. chapter title from fallingforyou by the 1975. enjoy.

Jongin doesn’t see the messages until he’s back home, fucked out and exhausted and looking forward to cuddling with Kyungsoo until they both pass out. Instead, he finds an empty apartment and the lingering smell of someone else, potent anger and sadness. Did something happen?

_Okay. I’m spending the night at Chaehyun’s_. He flops down onto their sofa and calls Kyungsoo. 

It takes three tries for him to pick up, and Jongin grows impatient with each ring. Finally—“yes?”

“Where are you?”

“You know where I am,” Kyungsoo says. “What do you want, Jongin?”

“You,” says Jongin. 

There’s silence on the line for a moment. In the background, Jongin faintly hears footsteps, the awkward pacing of Kyungsoo’s breathing. “What?”

“I want you at home. You know I can’t sleep if you’re not here when I’m on pre—“

“Stop using that as an excuse for everything,” Kyungsoo snaps. 

“An excuse?” Jongin repeats. “You think I like that I’m—“ He inhales. “It’s not like I have a choice.”

“Why didn’t you just spend the night with the alpha you were with?”

Jongin is annoyed. Is Kyungsoo being dense on purpose? “It’s not my fucking choice, Kyungsoo, or fault, that you’re who my wolf recognizes for that.” 

More silence. “You can choose not to ask me,” says Kyungsoo. “Don’t ask me anymore.”

“What?” Jongin stands, unsure why but too wired, now, to sit. “What are you saying?”

Kyungsoo sighs. “I’m with someone right now, Jongin. I’ll see you when I get home.” And he just hangs up. The annoyance drains out of Jongin all at once, and that stupid hindbrain instinct makes him think he might cry. Would Kyungsoo say that? 

_Kyungsoo told me_  
_not to ask to neat w him anymore _  
_*nest_

Baekhyun takes ages to reply. Jongin sits back down, hands buried in his hoodie—Kyungsoo’s hoodie—the hoodie he’s wearing, letting the television play in the background. 

_i mean idr know what to tell u_  
_he’s entitled to that_

_Ok_, Jongin replies. He doesn’t know what answer he wanted, but not this. 

_maybe he’s just tryin to focus on like…the person he’s w rn. who u don’t even even know the name of_  
_so like maybe talk to him abt chaehyun and see if that’s y instead of jumping to the conclusion that he hates u like ik ur doing rn_

_Sure_  
_Kinda fucked up if he chooses s/o ges been seeing for a month over his best friend lol but whatever _  
_it’s not like i don’t already know alphad think we’re disposable _

_thats an asshole thing to say abt him n. U know it _  
_u have ur own life. why can’t he _

_i said sure didn’t I_

_Text me when ur done being a bitch, ill be around _

He bites his bottom lip. His gums ache, fangs feeling too big in his teeth, like he wants to tear into something until he forgets all else. _You can choose not to ask me_. 

His room is lonely. He takes a bath, drops one of the bath bombs Kyungsoo bought for him into the hot water and lets the murky swirl of blue and green lull him into quieter thoughts. He’s cold. Part of the frustration with preheat is that, as if his body wants to later emphasize the heat to him, is that he’s freezing for half of it, chills running up and down his spine even though the water would scald him any other day. Some omegas run too hot from the jump, some have mild symptoms that make preheat indistinguishable, but Jongin isn’t so lucky. Kyungsoo runs warm, and releases safety and comfort until they’re all Jongin can scent or feel. But Kyungsoo isn’t here, so. He takes his bath. 

His room is lonely. He lasts maybe fifteen minutes in there, naked and bundled under his blanket and comforter, heat turned up high, before he swallows his pride and shuffles to Kyungsoo’s bedroom, the blanket cocooning his body. Fuck. Stepping in knocks him out, endorphins rushing his body all at once—it smells like them, so potent after the absence that Jongin gets it, now, why Johnny would think he is taken. 

Kyungsoo is out with another omega when Jongin is cold, and Jongin is selfish, he can admit this in the darkness of this room, so he hides deep under Kyungsoo’s covers and finally, finally, feels warm. 

-

“Jongin?” a soft voice asks, patting his shoulder. “Jonginnie?”

Jongin awakes slowly. He has no game plan for Kyungsoo’s arrival. He keeps his face buried under the comforter. He wiggles his toes. “Hi,” he mumbles. 

“Can I get in or do you want to sleep alone?” Kyungsoo asks, voice near a whisper. 

“I thought you didn’t want to do that anymore.” Then, “your partner would probably be upset with that.” Then, afraid Kyungsoo will change his mind, “you can, if you want.”

There’s shuffling for a moment, the dull thud of shoes moved elsewhere, and then the bed dips, and then Kyungsoo presses close, their bodies all but touching. The space between feels impossible. 

Kyungsoo inhales. “You’re naked.”

“I’m sorry,” Jongin muffles, still not looking over. “I was… I was antsy. I’m sorry.”

A moment’s silence. It’s awkward, as things never are between them. 

”How do you feel now?” Kyungsoo asks. 

Jongin shifts. “Well, you’re here now.” Answer enough. “Did you mean that? Earlier. What you said.”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo says. Okay. Jongin tries getting off the bed; he wants at least a shred of dignity, but Kyungsoo stops him with a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back in. “Stop, wait. Jongin. In that moment, yes, but not now. I was, I guess I was frustrated with something, and I let that anger translate onto you. Which wasn’t fair.”

“Okay,” Jongin says. 

“You’re my best friend, and that’s not… I’d do anything for you, there’s no one I love more than you. Okay?”

Jongin feels warm all throughout his body, like that inescapable cold receded at once with Kyungsoo’s hand on his shoulder. He nods and turns his face to smile into the pillow, shuffling closer. His heat is near. Maybe tomorrow? He needs to call Minho, but the thought sits heavy and awkward on his tongue. Maybe he’ll just—steal one of Kyungsoo’s blankets and get through with toys this time; the hypersex drive is one part, but he spends the first several hours, sometimes the full day, just craving touch, the hot ache of a nude body against his. 

“I thought you were gonna spend the night with,” he tries to remember their name, “uh, with, you know.”

“Chaehyun,” Kyungsoo offers. “Uh, no, they, uh, called it off.” Jongin murmurs _oh?_ and Kyungsoo continues, almost hesitant, “they thought I smelled too much like you.”

Jongin licks his lips. He turns to face Kyungsoo, “really? It was only the first time since you started seeing them.”

Kyungsoo laughs, something ironic and bitter that Jongin hates. It’s not right for Kyungsoo to sound or feel bitter. “I guess. Yeah, I guess it was.”

“Maybe they’re one of those creepy weird omegas who are super possessive?” Jongin offers.

“They were pretty nice,” Kyungsoo says. “I mean, I saw them for almost three months, and they were kind. But I don’t know, I’m sure they have their reasons.” He smells off. 

“You know why,” Jongin says, squinting through the darkness at the light glow of Kyungsoo’s face, the sheen of moisturizer that takes time to settle into his skin at night. It might be Jongin’s sleeping mask cream; they share too many skincare products, even though Jongin’s skin is a tad drier. 

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo lies.

“You do.” He moves closer. Kyungsoo’s heartbeat skips.

“Sometimes,” Kyungsoo says, “I need you to let me have my own thoughts.” He remembers Baekhyun’s text earlier—_he’s entitled to that_—but putting this knowledge into action, actual awareness, is easier said than done. Again, hs gums hurt. The emotional whiplash of the day is ridiculous; Jongin loves being an omega, spent many years unlearning the internalized hatred that gets shoved in from puberty, but fuck does he still hate the hyper-emotion of pre, the way everything amps up to a thousand in the lead up to the dizzying crescendo of heat. He doesn’t believe the bullshit alphas put out about pre harkening back to some falsified past where omegas wanted to rely on alphas; he knows intellectually that it’s just the imbalance, the scent sensitivity, a dozen other biological factors that make him like this. He still hates it. He can smell the waves of hurt that emanate, and though he tries to stop them, reign in his stupidest gut reactions like he does every other day, it’s so hard now. He’s not an emotional person. He hates these ridges of weakness. Kyungsoo always says emotion isn’t a weakness, but Kyungsoo is an alpha, so no one judges him for it; he gets praised for being open and gentle and kind while Jongin gets mocked. So. 

Kyungsoo whispers, “they think we’re more than we say we are.” The intimacy of the moment is not lost on Jongin.

“Oh,” he answers, just as quiet. _Yeah_. They sleep.

-

Jongin awakens the next morning, and knows his heat is only a few hours off. It’s a Monday, so he needs to email his professors, have Yixing notify their supervisor. Does he have a test on Tuesday? The safest bet is calling the dean of students and asking for a retake in case his beta professor continues the trek for worst human alive. 

It’s only after running through all these that he realizes a few other things in quick succession: that he’s still naked, sweat pooling in every crevice of his body, that he faces away from Kyungsoo now, that Kyungsoo is spooning him, his face smushed into Jongin’s back. Jongin’s blanket remains a barrier for his nudity, but he feels the hard line of Kyungsoo’s dick and it takes considerable restraint not to grind back. 

This is Kyungsoo. They cuddle at the time. A lot of people get hard in the morning; this means little. Yet when he tries sneaking out from under Kyungsoo’s arms, his body betrays him and he faces the other man instead. He wakes up in the process, and Jongin meets his hooded eyes. He wants to maintain some distance between them, but this close to heat, he’s no hope of that, not when he missed out on nesting yesterday. Their bodies press close; Kyungsoo wears shorts, but Jongin can feel the pressure of his erection where it touches his thigh. 

“Morning,” Kyungsoo murmurs, voice deep and worn from sleep, a low thrum in the undertone. Jongin reaches out to rest his fingers on Kyungsoo’s throat, hand moving before his brain, to feel the vibrations under skin. Kyungsoo’s breath hitches. 

“Morning,” Jongin replies, leveling their heads on the long shared pillow. 

“Your,” he inhales deeply, a low internal growl under Jongin’s fingers with whatever scent Kyungsoo finds, “your heat is really close.” Jongin almost swears Kyungsoo’s dick twitches against his thigh, but Kyungsoo doesn’t smell embarrassed or rush away, so he figures he imagines it. Jesus. Why is he imagining these things. “You need me to call anyone?”

“Maybe just email my professors and call Xing to tell our boss?” Jongin asks. Kyungsoo does reek of him. Maybe he can, in some ways, see what Chuyeong—Chaehi—the person he dated, whatever, he never needs to remember again—meant. But they’re roommates, and both tactile. Who would Kyungsoo smell like if not Jongin?

“No one else I gotta call?” 

Jongin hums and snuggles closer, burying his face in Kyungsoo’s neck, breathing into his clavicle. “Think this’ll be a solo heat.”

“Oh,” Kyungsoo says, surprised, happiness emanating from his scent in waves. “That’s—“ He clears his throat. “Are you sure? Will you be okay?”

“Might steal some of your clothes just for, y'know, the, uh, scent. The alphaness of it all.”

“Right, of course!” Kyungsoo’s chest heats up. “You can borrow whatever. Keep anything. I’ll spend it at Minseok’s, then.”

Jongin laughs. “Soo, you’re being so awkward. You can stay if you want, I doubt it’ll matter.”

“You haven’t spent one alone in, like, five heats. I want you to feel safe and comfortable, and we don’t know how you’ll fare without an alpha to help you through, or if my being around will make it more, uh, more difficult. Better safe than sorry.”

Jongin stretches. He moans at the turned cricks, the sense of endless joy that sometimes comes with a good stretch. “Maybe you could—“ He catches himself. Could what? Stay? Be the alpha to get Jongin through? Jongin is insane. 

“I could what?” Kyungsoo asks. Before Jongin can think of how best to answer, Kyungsoo heats up beneath him, scenting out arousal and a tinge of shame. “Uh, sorry, you just—your heat is starting. I think. You smell—really, uh, good.” This time, Jongin is sure Kyungsoo’s dick swells against his thigh, and he shudders, a dull heat in his stomach. “Like, really go—I’m gonna leave. See. I’m already being weird and making you uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Jongin breathes, seeking more warmth from his alpha. Best friend. Kyungsoo. From Kyungsoo. He breathes open-mouthed into Kyungsoo’s shoulder. The temperature difference is less stark. “‘S warm,” Jongin mumbles. “‘M not cold anymore, it’s getting warm.” 

“I think I should go,” Kyungsoo says. 

“You could, maybe, just... stay for the first leg of it? When it’s still not sexual. Just. Being touched would be nice.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Kyungsoo says. 

Jongin closes his eyes. His astigmatism is worse during heat. Light sensitivity flares. “Please,” he whispers. Kyungsoo’s heart pounds. 

-

It hits. God, but Jongin loves this. His heats are regular, for the most part, so he knows that every four or so months, it will hit. 

Alphas and betas with knot-envy think heat is always terrible, that all it means is pain and greed. It can be painful, and Jongin is greedy on a good day—he’s a dancer and a literature major, all he knows how to do is want—but that’s not all it entails. It’s just—sensual. His senses amp up to max, like a near-full return to his wolf. He feels everything. He can hear Kyungsoo’s heartbeat, the sound of his saliva when he licks his lips, the rustle of the air conditioner on the garbage bag in their bathroom. There’s the taste of salt in the air between them, the feeling of every place the hairs on his skin touch Kyungsoo’s, the soft edges of Kyungsoo’s body everywhere Jongin looks. It is overwhelming. 

The quiet touch at first works. Breathing in a safe alpha’s scent is comforting in ways Jongin does not claim to understand, and the honey citrus of Kyungsoo releases an extra layer of tension he never realized existed. Maybe because Kyungsoo smells more familiar than Minho or even Ravi. He smells like home. 

He gets antsy. At some point, the touch, Kyungsoo’s soft breathing, emphasize contact more than comfort. He squirms. “Kyungsoo.” Kyungsoo’s cold toes dig into his ankle, and Jongin knows it’s an issue when even that starts to feel like a tease. Kyungsoo hums in response. “Can I...” He licks his lips. Raises his head from Kyungsoo’s neck to meet his eyes. “Kiss you? Can I kiss you?” 

Kyungsoo freezes. 

The transition is when his immersion of Kyungsoo, of whatever alpha, feels less like something he wants and more like something he needs. It doesn’t feel out of the norm to be here, like this. If all he can smell, touch, hear is Kyungsoo, then why not—more. His hormones go haywire. It’s like preheat, except he knows that there’s no coming down from it, that he can’t just sleep and know he’ll be fine and embarrassed in the morning. Things get bad, then worse, before they get better. Usually, it takes longer to reach this point, but it can’t be more than three hours, and he’s already overwhelmed by Kyungsoo’s scent. 

Still, no answer. “Kyungsoo,” Jongin repeats, “hyung.” He digs his fingernails into Kyungsoo’s shoulder. 

When Kyungsoo speaks, his voice is low and uncertain. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Then, “we agreed nothing sexual.”

“Kissing isn’t sexual,” Jongin says. “It’s just—kissing. Sehun—“

“Don’t use them, they’re mated now.” Kyungsoo exhales. Jongin shuffles closer, tries to get into all the miniature points of contact missing. No close is close enough. “If I, if we do that, you have to promise to tell me when to go.”

“I don’t know if I can promise that,” Jongin admits. “Can’t you—you’ll smell it. You’ll know.” He bites his bottom lip. “‘M getting cold again, can you, can you—hyung, just... something. Please.”

“You’re shaking,” Kyungsoo murmurs, running his hand down and up Jongin’s back. 

“‘Cause you’re not touching me,” Jongin says, hopes it’s not a whine, feels bad immediately, this rush of emotions all at once, “sorry, don’t mean to pressure, it’s okay, I’ll be...” His words get cut off when Kyungsoo tilts his head, a warm palm around his neck, and kisses him. Just like that. 

Just like that—the chills recede immediately, and his body loses all the building tension. God, all of it evokes whiplash like no other. He doesn’t think he’s like this, most of the time? There’s a difference between needy and desperate, and while he is always desperate during heat, he doubts he gets this needy. What is it, this time?

Jongin doesn’t think about Kyungsoo that way, not really, but he imagined how Kyungsoo kisses, and it’s somehow different and the same. He saw him kiss exes, the way his eyelashes fanned on his face when leaning up, the curve of his nose leaning down, and everything seemed in place, always, like he did it the way he knew best, and trusted that the other person would follow. He imagined he’d be maybe—pushy isn’t the right word, but it’s close; instead, he finds that it’s less Kyungsoo and more that Jongin just wants to give it up for him, for the moist softness of his full mouth, the teasing way Kyungsoo swipes his tongue across Jongin’s lips, the thumb that presses against his pulse point like a living awareness of his presence. He feels had. Like Kyungsoo has him. 

He has to pull back to gasp out a breath, whining when Kyungsoo follows to the skin right before his chin, suckling a little on the flesh until Jongin feels himself get wet. Wetter. Ah, fuck, he’s wet already. 

“Thought y’said nothing sexual,” says Jongin, searching for Kyungsoo’s lips back on his. He whines again when Kyungsoo bites his chin, a sharp little reminder to be good for his alpha. 

Oh. His brain is getting confused. The bad peak must be soon, if he’s forgetting something as simple as whether he has an alpha or not. 

“Kissing’s not sexual,“ Kyungsoo says, the same tone Jongin had before. 

The problem is, Jongin thinks fifteen minutes later, frantically kissing Kyungsoo like he might die otherwise, is that once heat makes you start, it’s difficult to stop. Kyungsoo rolls onto his back and pulls Jongin on top of him with a tight grip on his bare ass, letting Jongin’s legs fall open to straddle him, crotch aligning down onto Kyungsoo’s. It’s meant to affect alphas, too, mimic a low-level rut that drives them wild, drives them to knot. 

Jongin is so wet. “Fuck,” Jongin breathes, “fuck, Kyungsoo—”

“God, you’re so wet,” Kyungsoo says, a sort of wonder in his voice that makes Jongin light up everywhere inside. 

“For you,” Jongin tells him, biting Kyungsoo’s bottom lip and grinding his hips down when Kyungsoo groans. “‘S for you, wet for you.” 

His eyes roll in the back of his head when Kyungsoo thrusts up. Kyungsoo’s fingers dig into his ass, and Jongin swears, he swears, that Kyungsoo’s fingers slide over, wet. Any other time, Jongin might flush with embarrassment, but right now, it just makes him proud, somehow, some crazy, stupid way, that his body is already so prepared. 

“I wanna,” Kyungsoo starts, but cuts himself off. Tries again, “God, I wanna—”

“Knot me?” Jongin offers, tilting his head to deepen the kiss, fingers tangling into his alpha’s hair. His lips are slick and swollen, and he bites so much that Kyungsoo’s must be sore, but they continue all the same. “Want you to knot me, want it inside.” There’s a low panic in the back of his mind at his demands, but he figures it’s the heat, an echo of the ache inside with every second gone by that he remains empty. 

Kyungsoo, he supposes, has a different reason. He freezes. “Fuck,” he curses, but this is different. His hands, like, rush off Jongin’s body like it burns, and then before Jongin, in this hazy heat, can process what’s going on, Kyungsoo moves him off and gets off the bed, standing several feet away. “Fuck.”

“Wha—” Jongin is hurt? His breathing picks up; he sits up on the bed, the comforter sliding off his shoulders and onto his thigh, but Kyungsoo steps back. Yeah, Jongin is hurt. He’s never had an alpha reject him during heat. Kyungsoo is rejecting him. During heat. “What did I do?” he asks, and he knows he’ll hate how small his voice is in the morning, how obviously hurt and upset he is. 

“You didn’t do anything,” Kyungsoo says, but his heartbeat, Jongin’s so attuned to it right now, all he hears in the terrible loneliness of this moment, his heartbeat skips, a lie in awkward motion. 

“Then why—do you not—” He swallows. “Do you not want me?”

“God, Jonginnie.” Kyungsoo exhales. His eyes are Jongin’s favorite part of his body, and they’re gold now, tinged red around his pupil. “I have to go. We didn’t agree to—”

“I’m agreeing now,” says Jongin.

“I’m not,” Kyungsoo says. A skip. He pushes his hair off his forehead, and looks away. He never meets Jongin’s eyes. 

“You’re lying,” Jongin tells him. “I know you’re lying.” Even as he says this, he hears in his mind, _sometimes I say things that aren't true because I need them to be_. He can’t believe he has Junmyeon in his head during heat. This is a disaster. His body hurts. “Kyungsoo.”

“I have to go,” Kyungsoo repeats. “Do you want me to bring you anything? I’m gonna go get your toys from your room and Gatorade, I’ll have Sehun bring you food—”

“If you’re gonna go, then go,” Jongin snaps. Hearing another omega’s name when Kyungsoo won’t—that’s the worst thing. Shit.

Kyungsoo rubs his palm over his mouth. “Should I call Minho—”

“Get out,” Jongin says flatly. Kyungsoo gets out. 

-

He comes to with a knotting vibrator stretching him open, mouth dry and bum sore. A few thoughts in sequence: _what day is it?_ and then _why was it so bad this time?_ then _why am I in Kyungsoo’s room?_ and then, as his brain begins to offer recollection from under the heavy blanket of heat, _fuck_.

-

The apartment is lonely. He washes Kyungsoo’s sheets, mops it and sprays a gallon of air freshener, sprays scent neutralizer, and then lights candles in each room of the house. He disinfects his toys—God, did Kyungsoo leave his box outside the room door, anyway, or did Jongin walk all the way over to get it himself? He can’t remember, and he hates not knowing—and showers, does his full skincare routine instead of half-assing three steps, and rubs aloe vera body lotion all over to soothe the worn out soreness. When he goes to the fridge for something to eat, he finds carb-heavy Italian food in the fridge with a sticky saying _for Jongin_. He eats, careful not to ruin his Rilakkuma sheet mask. 

If heat is sensory overload, the first few hours after are always devoid. Everything he does feels like an instruction manual. He does this and this and that. Hours go by. 

He finally checks his phone while watching Queer Eye, revelling in the background noise as they revamp another mediocre white American male beta’s life. 

**Baekhyunnie**  
**__**_are you srs? did u even think about what u were doing? u werent deep enough not to know that it was him _  
_when I told u to leave me alone until u were done being a bitch that wasn’t indication to be a bitch to him instead_

**Sehun**  
**__**_Jongin…_  
_Call me when you’re up. Baek was at minseoks when soo went over and he eavesdropped on them. Call me. Love u man but we gotta make better choices_

**Kyungsoo** ⚡️☄️☀️  
_Hey text me when you’re good_  
_Not that you’re bad, now. Sorry. When you’re through it _  
_Please make sure to eat and rest, I can clean up when I’m home, just rest _  
_I’m sorry. I love you. _

-

He texts Kyungsoo that he’s clear, and then kind of hides under his comforter on his bed, watching recipe videos on YouTube in the hopes of sparking joy. Not quite sadness, just a strange emptiness. Maybe it’s worse than usual. He figures it’s because he didn’t get knotted by an actual person.

He must fall asleep, still worn out by the days of emotional extremes and exertion. When he awakes, it’s involuntary; the heavy weight of another across his, using a phone—off silence, which is ridiculous—with little regard to Jongin’s rest or comfort. 

“G’roff,” he mumbles into his pillow. 

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Baekhyun asks, far too loud. “Is the baby making more demands?”

“Baekhyun,” he says, turning his head to the side for articulation, “get off of me.”

“Why should I?” Baekhyun drops more weight onto Jongin. “Your bony body is my new acupuncture relief.” Jongin tries stabbing his elbow back into Baekhyun’s stomach or throat or eye, but Baekhyun is heavy and nimble, and often unfazed. “I’ll get off if you promise to apologize to Kyungsoo.”

“I was already gonna,” Jongin grumbles. 

“As your moral compass—“ “—you are not my moral compass—“ “—_as your moral compass_, it bothers me that you make such poor decisions. Such selfish decisions.”

“I was in heat,” Jongin says. 

“I’m not an alpha, that’s not an end-all response for me.” Baekhyun pokes his finger right below Jongin’s mating spot, one of the most tender locations of his body. He hisses, body jerking. “Sorry,” Baekhyun lies. “You weren’t that deep. It was day one, only some hours in. Come on. Pick a better excuse.”

“It was different, hyung,” Jongin says, “it was different this time. Everything felt—“ Accelerated? Worse. Better. “It was more. More than usual.” He hides his face back in the pillow and whispers, low enough that Kyungsoo, out in the kitchen or living room, his presence always tuned in for Jongin, won’t hear. “I thought he was mine.”

Baekhyun rolls off of him, flopping to his side and curling around Jongin. “Let’s sleep,” he says, voice kinder and softer than before, “and you’re gonna consider others’ feelings more when we wake up.”

“Kyungsoo—“ 

“You smell miserable.”

“I always do, after. It's just the crash.”

“_I_ know that, and usually he does, too, but he thinks he is irresponsible and hurt you, so he’ll distort logic against himself. Also, you smell worse than normal.”

“Oh, gee, thanks, hyung.” He rolls his eyes at Baekhyun’s laugh and assurance that he meant his misery, and then they sleep, Baekhyun’s scent blanketing around him and almost outdoing Kyungsoo’s.


	3. do you like me like i love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> it hasn’t even started and you worry about the end already  
/ be troubled about eternity later

Kyungsoo is awkward for a few days after, grateful for Jongin’s apology but still smelling guilty, unsure. Self-blaming in a way Jongin believes is very unproductive and useless. 

He tries maintaining distance, giving Kyungsoo space instead of smothering him like he knows he often—always, Baekhyun says—does, but then Minseok texts him_ Hey are you avoiding kyungsoo? Don’t tell him I asked this. Actually or do I’m an adult and you two should be too_. “I’m not avoiding you,” Jongin tells Kyungsoo that same day, the second Kyungsoo walks back into their apartment at midnight. So maybe there are better ways to go about that. Kyungsoo does like when he’s straightforward, though. 

“Minseok?” Kyungsoo asks. He sighs when Jongin nods. He walks further in, taking off his shoes, dropping his keys on their small circular breakfast table, socks sliding over the wood. Sat in the living room with Jongin, he offers, “it’s understandable if you are.”

“Stop that,” says Jongin. “Self deprecation doesn’t work for you. You told me not to blame myself, I said okay. I told you the same, and what are you doing? Is that fair? I wanna give you space because I know I can be too much, not because I want you to wallow over something so stupid.”

“You’re not too much,” Kyungsoo says, glancing at him. “You can be overwhelming, but never too much. Encompassing is the better word.”

Jongin smiles, a quick upturn of his lips. He licks them. “It’s not like it was a terrible experience.” He twists the ring on his middle finger, the thin band Baekhyun got him and won’t allow off. “You’re a good kisser, you know.”

“Ah,” Kyungsoo says. When Jongin sneaks a look, there’s a faint red to his cheeks. “Well, thanks, Jongin.”

Jongin stares down at the television remote. “I don’t, uh, want it to have to stop, but if you need… I wouldn’t be. Upset. About not nesting with you anymore. Of course.” Actually, he would be upset, but Baekhyun and Junmyeon were insufferable about making sure he checked in with Kyungsoo. Jongin thinks it’s dumb they act like Kyungsoo wouldn’t be upfront if it was an issue, like he was last time, but there is a point for reiterating consent. 

Kyungsoo nudges Jongin’s knee with his own. “I know that. Thanks, Jongin-ah. You’re not a bad kisser yourself.”

Jongin looks up, and over at his best friend. He thinks it’s a joke when he says, “if you wanted to makeout next time we’re nesting, I wouldn’t _mind_.”

Kyungsoo coughs, a short exhale. “That’s, well. Uh, that’s good to know. If I ever need that information.”

“It’s totally normal,” Jongin says. He makes out with his friends all the time. Not his, like, close friends, except one time when he and Baekhyun were high, and the one time when Chanyeol dared him during truth or dare at a party freshman year, but they don’t really count, because he and Baekhyun were high and Chanyeol is a little slutty. Jongin might be a little slutty, too, but definitely not as much as Chanyeol. Probably. He wasn’t back then. Anyway, that’s not even an insult. Usually, it’s with casual friends, like Minho or Johnny. He just likes knowing who he sleeps with, which can’t be a tally against his friendliness. His friend worthiness. He doesn’t think he’ll repeat this spiel to Kyungsoo, in case he’s still sensitive from last time. 

“Well, everyone has their own understanding of that,” Kyungsoo says. He pats Jongin’s thigh. 

-

There is another omega in Jongin’s home. This time, Jongin doesn’t find out by walking in on them, but instead because Kyungsoo texted him _Hey I have someone over lemme know when you’re on your way back_. Baekhyun says that a sensible person would recognize that as a suggestion to stay away as long as possible, but Jongin is pretty sensible, and still thinks he should let Kyungsoo know that he’s coming home in an hour. It’s nine PM. His bedtime is ten. 

“Jongin-ah,” Baekhyun says, mouth stuffed with rice and fried chicken, “don’t be so annoying.”

“I can’t believe I know what you’re saying with your mouth so stuffed, hyung,” Jongin says. Baekhyun bares his teeth so that all of the—“God, you’re so _gross_, you win.”

“What’s gross,” Baekhyun says after swallowing, “is your insane possessive streak over an alpha that isn’t your own.”

Jongin pats Baekhyun’s cheek. “I’m not having this conversation with you again, Baekhyunnie hyung.” He drizzles more of the honey garlic sauce they offer on his chicken, and determines that while Baekhyun is wrong, maybe he will stay out later so that Kyungsoo can finish. His date, or rendezvous, or hookup. Or just—finish. Whatever it is. Kyungsoo will need to finish. Oh, that’s a thought. 

“Yah, stop thinking about sex in front of me,” Baekhyun says. 

“I’m not!” Jongin is glad blushing is more subtle for him. Jesus. “I wasn’t—why would you even think that? Don’t be such a pervert.” 

Baekgyun raises an eyebrow. “That was a guess from the weird look on your face in context, but now I’m sure you were. Are we thinking about Kyungsoo and sex at the same time?”

“We aren’t thinking about anything.”

“But you are?” Jongin doesn’t think that deserves a response, but he does think he might need to hang out with other people. Other non-Baekhyun people. 

When he gets home, the omega isn’t there anymore, a muted and bearable smell that concentrates near Kyungsoo’s room. Kyungsoo is still there, though, boxers and a loose bathrobe tied around his torso, leaning on his side against the counter, watching tea steep in his big Baymax mug. When Jongin drops his bag on the couch and meets him in the kitchen, he glances up through his eyelashes, dipping the teabag in and out it metronome. Jongin’s breath catches. 

“Something ‘bout you looks different,” Jongin says. 

“Hmm?” Kyungsoo licks his lips. Weird that they would be dry; he’s always careful with chapstick. “Nothing bad, I hope. How was dinner with Baekhyun?”

Shit. Of course. God, it’s terrible that Baekhyun was right. “Hyung, you got _laid_?” Jongin asks. 

“Well, I mean—“ He takes a sip from his mug. “I texted you.”

“No, you said you had someone over.”

“I bet Baekhyun knew what I meant.”

Jongin makes a face. “Whatever. Who was it? Why are your eyes red? Are you gonna see them again?”

“You gonna do a whole questionnaire? Is there a form for me to fill out?” Still, because it’s Kyungsoo, he answers Jongin’s questions: some guy in Kyungsoo’s Classic American Film class, no, Jongin doesn’t know him, they smoked a bit, and Kyungsoo might see him again, he might not, it’s not all so serious.

Jongin is more than a little offended that Kyungsoo got high without him since they usually take that felony risk together, so a few minutes later, they’re reclining on the sofa, Jongin’s legs kicked up to the coffee table and trying to blow out smoke rings. He idly hopes this doesn’t get on their work clothes. The room doors are open. 

“D’ya wanna watch something, hyung? There’s new episodes of Black Mirror, I think,” Jongin says. 

“Sure,” Kyungsoo says, leaning forward to grab the remote from the coffee table and flipping it to Netflix, soon with an episode humming noise and a bizarre plot. 

A bit in, Jongin says, “I didn’t know you did casual,” passing the smoke to Kyungsoo.

“Hm?” Kyungsoo inhales long and smooth, a smoother exhale out, smoke clouding the air in front of them for a moment. 

“Well, you said it wasn’t all that serious, but it seemed like you usually only screwed people you dated or planned on dating. New horizons, hyung?” 

Kyungsoo doesn’t respond for a long while, and Jongin is kind of okay with that, focused just on his rising high for the rest of the episode. Used to it, too; Kyungsoo likes thinking before he speaks, and Jongin likes when he gets deliberate and careful, really makes Jongin feel like the things he says matter, but not in the condescending way Sehun and Baekhyun do. “I guess I’m kinda hung up over someone,” he says.

Jongin feels a weird clutch in his stomach, like he ate something bad. He takes an extra long drag from the cigarette, until he feels the burn. “What?”

“It’s nothing,” Kyungsoo says. “Never mind, forget it.”

Jongin shifts, his right leg folded under him so that he can face Kyungsoo. “Kyungsoo-yah, you know you can share anything with me, right? I didn’t know it was, uh, so serious, but that’s my fault for not paying attention.”  
  
“Uh,” says Kyungsoo. 

“I’m way better with faces than names,” Jongin swears. “I’d recognize them in a lineup, for sure. Chaerin? Chaehi!”

“Chaehyun,” Kyungsoo corrects, amused. “I didn’t say it was them.”

“I’m not oblivious, hyung,” says Jongin. 

“Uh huh,” says Kyungsoo. “Sure, well, thanks, Jongin-ah, for the, uh, pep talk.” He grabs the joint from between Jongin’s mouth, his thumb brushing the corner of Jongin’s lips. Jongin licks his lips, stares at Kyungsoo’s hands while he rolls it again for tighter hold, adept and quick. He has such beautiful hands. Jongin is sure he noticed this before, but it’s weird that he never said anything. He should, right? Never too many compliments, even if Kyungsoo often freaks out when he gets them. “You have really nice hands, Kyungsoo hyung.” 

Kyungsoo glances at him, mouth curled up a little, in that smile he gets, his big eyes lazy, hooded, red from smoking but still relaxed from—“oh my god,” Jongin says, “did you wash your hands after fingering that omega?” Kyungsoo’s fingers don’t even catch on the lighter, just the same smooth flicker and flame, cupping his hand around while he lights the joint in his mouth. See, this is how Jongin knows he’s high. Not even a twitch from Jongin’s words. 

Even as the usual _I don’t kiss and tell, Baekhyun please stop talking about Yixing’s preferences over lunch, no Minseok I don’t wanna know what beta pussy tastes like, you can do that alone_ guy, he says, “I didn’t finger them. They did it themselves. But, yeah, I still washed my hands.”

“What, really?” Jongin asks, a little thrown. “Why? Are you a lazy alpha in bed?”’Jongin doesn’t mind lazy alphas in bed, because he likes doing the work himself sometimes, Sehun says he likes to show off. Yet Jongin never imagined Kyungsoo to be that type. 

Kyungsoo leans his head back on the sofa, one of his feet kicked up on the coffee table, his other knee pressed to Jongin’s calf. He rolls his head to the side to look at Jongin, really look at him, eyes heavy as he licks his bottom lip. Smoking always makes the mouth dry, Jongin reasons, unsure why his stomach tightens. “I don’t think I am. But he liked being told what to do, so I made him prep himself.”

“Oh,” Jongin says, “I didn’t know you went for that type of omega.”

Kyungsoo huffs, almost laughter. “There isn’t any specific type of omega, but if there were, I’m not so sure you’d know what my type is.” Jongin almost chokes on the joint, inhaling too fast. Kyungsoo leans close to pat his back and has him drink from a spare water bottle that was on the coffee table. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks.” He can’t stop staring at Kyungsoo’s hands, not as they wipe a drop of water from Jongin’s chin, not as they cap the water bottle and place it back on the table. “What’s your type, then?”

Kyungsoo rolls his head back to the sofa and blows out smoke. “Tall, maybe tan. It’s—I mean, whatever, never mind.”

“No, say it!” 

Kyungsoo shakes his head. “What did you mean by that type of omega? Does it bother you when omegas have that preference?”

Jongin shakes his head. Shit, he wants a drink. It’s difficult to feel every part of his body, but he’s still so aware of every small place he and Kyungsoo touch, of the mole behind Kyungsoo’s ear, the family sitcom they switched to in the background. “I’m no one’s keeper. It was just—I don’t know, I’m kind of, uh, more, y’know, proactive. In bed. And I guess I never imagined that you were—“ He’s really not sure what word to use, so he settles on, “—into telling people what to do. In bed.”

Kyungsoo maintains eye contact even as he says, “you thought about how I’d be in bed?” with his red eyes, tinted in a way that almost makes it seem like alpha red instead of just the high. His eyes are half-mast, still, and Jongin can admit to himself that it’s almost overwhelmingly hot. 

“Well,” Jongin starts, a little flustered. “It was hard not to, a little, after you made, after I saw you, like, knotting someone’s mouth.”

“Hm,” Kyungsoo says, pensive. “You make it sound scandalous.” His mouth twitches. “Have you never gotten your mouth knotted before?”

Jongin—he’s a grown man; he can have conversations about sex with his friends without it becoming a thing. Sure, Kyungsoo isn’t the friend he tends to have those conversations with, but that shouldn’t be an issue. He has plenty of alpha friends. It’s embarrassing, then, that he feels some sharp twinge in his stomach, and has to shift a little on the sofa because he’s getting wet. From nothing. Really, nothing at all. Kyungsoo’s eyes widen, just a second, and his nostrils flare. Jongin is sure he is horrified, but all his body gives him is another slow pulse of slick. 

Jesus. There was a question. Kyungsoo, his best friend, asking him—_have you never gotten your mouth knotted before?_ Jongin shakes his head. 

“It can be very intimate,” says Kyungsoo. “Feels good for some omegas, too, it has for the people I’ve done it with. And…” He bites his bottom lip, popping one side out with his teeth. “It’s really, really good for the alpha.”

Jongin glances down. Probably he’s imagining the swell in Kyungsoo’s sweats. They often crease. 

“Oh,” Jongin eventually says. He clears his throat, and turns to the TV. “You wanna watch white Americans ruin their life?” 

“I’d like nothing more,” Kyungsoo says, all tension gone from his voice just like that. 

Does Kyungsoo get horny when he’s high? Jongin never noticed before, if he did, but it’s not like they’ve ever spoken about oral knotting before. It’s not like they’ve ever smoked right after Kyungsoo had sex, either. Jongin gets a little horny when he’s high, but then he just, like, texts sexually charged things to Minho or Johnny, and jerks off before going to bed. Now, though, another joint and three episodes of Arrested Development later, he just wants to kiss Kyungsoo. Like. A lot. Is that weird? They kissed before, and it’s not like it ruined anything, or made their friendship all that awkward. 

“Hyung,” Jongin says. On screen, a car is on fire. Kyungsoo hums in acknowledgement. “Would you wanna, uh, maybe kiss again? It was really good, last time. I kinda just wanna be kissed, it’s nothing, like—so it’s okay if you don’t want—“ but he’s cut off by Kyungsoo turning his body and leaning in to kiss Jongin, head tilted so he can best slot their mouths together. _Oh, God_, he thinks, body gone boneless, tipping into Kyungsoo’s touch. His mouth is so soft. It’s easier to think of Kyungsoo as the guy who makes omegas finger themselves while he watches, with the way he kisses Jongin, tasting of smoke and tea. He doesn’t know how long they kiss. God only knows when he ends up on Kyungsoo’s lap, Kyungsoo lying flat on his back with one of his hands spread across Jongin’s back, the softer flesh right before his ass. HIs other hand cups the back of Jongin’s neck, close to his mating gland. It’s good. It’s so good. 

There must be a reason why this is a bad idea, but Kyungsoo’s lips are so soft, even though they’re a little chapped from smoking, and he kisses with such intent, just like Jongin remembered from preheat. It is almost overwhelming, the intimacy. 

Jongin, lips already parted, licks his tongue into Kyungsoo’s mouth, moaning when Kyungsoo sucks on his tongue and it feels just as, if not more, dirty than half of the things he’s done with other alphas all year. And it’s October. But there’s mostly this sort of, like—the strange feeling when he’s conscious that he’s with someone else, how vulnerable it feels to be touched this way, but still so exciting, too. 

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin says, pausing the kiss so they can breathe against each other’s mouths, “hyung.”

“Hey,” Kyungsoo answers, voice so soft, the slightest puff of air when he asks, “this okay?”

“Yeah,” Jongin says, and then _yeah_ again when Kyungsoo asks “and this?” when he rubs his thumb over Jongin’s mating gland, really just a tease, however loud it makes Jongin gasp and go fully pliant over Kyungsoo’s body; “and this?” when Kyungsoo trails his hand lower to palm Jongin’s ass, gropes it a little when Jongin arches into the touch and gets wet again. No way Kyungsoo doesn’t smell that, not the way his hand tightens and releases with a bite of Jongin’s bottom lip. Jongin nods. _Yeah_. Maybe the best is when Kyungsoo kisses him again, hard and wet, and slides his thigh between Jongin’s legs, pressing up until—“oh, God,” Jongin breathes, hips stuttering forward and yeah, Christ, that’s his erection pressed on his best friend’s thigh. 

Kyungsoo kisses below his ear. “And this?” and jerks his thigh up, again and again, until Jongin whimpers and fucks down into the pressure, again and again and, fuck, again. 

“I—yes? Yeah, yeah, please let me—“

“Go ahead,” Kyungsoo says. “Come kiss me.”

Jongin doesn’t have to move far, their faces so close together, but his technique lacks finesse now, as he ruts into Kyungsoo’s thigh. Embarrassed, maybe, but too high to care, to let that beat his arousal. 

Kyungsoo’s fingers toy at the hem of his trousers, dipping just under, half a breath to where Jongin is soaked in his boxer-briefs. 

“You can,” Jongin says. “I’d like it.” 

Kyungsoo smiles. “That why you were disappointed earlier, when you thought I was a lazy alpha?” Who says he was disappointed? Well, sure, he was, but how would Kyungsoo know? It’s not like Jongin released scent markers. “You like your hole played with?”

Baekhyun is going to kill him. Baekhyun will hang him up to the light fixture by his intestines. Jongin isn’t even sure why, but he knows this is the type of thing Baekhyun secretly disapproves of, with his judgy beta gaze. 

Jongin nods, heat rising up his neck. 

“Okay,” says Kyungsoo, “but you gotta pick just one. You wanna keep what you’re doing, or d’ya want me to finger you?”

“Uh,” says Jongin. “Why?”

Kyungsoo licks across Jongin’s mouth. “I said so. We don’t have to do either one, but if we are, then it’s just one. It’ll feel good, I promise. Is that okay?”

Jongin wishes he could pretend he thinks about it, but that’s time wasted. It is… beyond hot, the way Kyungsoo tells him he must choose. Usually when Jongin’s on top he’s in charge, but here, straddling Kyungsoo with his hands bracketing his head, he thinks Kyungsoo could make him ask how high. It’s Kyungsoo. If he can’t trust him, even when they’re making sketchy decisions, then who else? Doesn’t mean he’s gonna be shy about sex, even if it does take his brain an extra few seconds to fire most neurons right now. Kyungsoo thinks he’s a prude because he hasn’t gotten his mouth knotted, and of all the things Jongin is, prude is not one. “Finger me,” he says. 

Kyungsoo has Jongin slide down his trousers, left in his boxers. They have a nice sofa, a sectional with great pillows and a throw under Kyungsoo’s back. Kyungsoo’s mom bought it for them, which is where Jongin will stop that thought, because Kyungsoo slides his hand down the back of Jongin’s boxers and runs his index and middle finger down the crease, spreading slick and rubbing them in endless circles over his hole. 

Jongin tries tempering his breathing, mouth smushed to Kyungsoo’s, a loud exhale when Kyungsoo slips a finger in. “Is this okay?” Kyungsoo asks. Jongin nods, his breath hitching when Kyungsoo curls his finger, fucking it in and out slowly. 

“You’re so wet,” Kyungsoo says, kissing Jongin’s chin. “Is that because of me?”

“God,” Jongin says, a short moan on the tail end of the swear. “Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo.” He hides his face in Kyungsoo’s clavicle, teeth indenting on the smooth skin, teeth bared, teeth sore with the desire to bite into something. 

Jongin hasn’t had sex while high before, but masturbation is usually a slow trip, where his body is so focused on pleasure that there’s no time to get caught up in his head, to forget the task and start thinking about, like, bills and the essay due two weeks ago. Like all he needs to do is feel. And he does, a lot, more so when Kyungsoo slides another finger in, no resistance at all; Jongin’s hole is so pliant and wet and lax. 

“You don’t know how I wanted—” Kyungsoo cut himself off to pull Jongin back into a kiss, using his free hand to gently rub his mating gland, forcing broken off noises from Jongin. “You think you could come for me?”

“God,” Jongin repeats. He chokes on it when Kyungsoo smooths his fingers over his prostate. “Yeah, I think—I could, I might. Will you kiss it?”

Kyungsoo freezes, just a millisecond without movement, a blip if Jongin wasn’t high and hypersensitive. Beneath his hip, Jongin feels Kyungsoo’s dick pulse, and Kyungsoo squirms, fingers shoving deeper in, down to the last knuckle. “You want—” He sounds breathless; he clears his throat. “You want me to lick you out?”

“Oh my God?” Jongin says, hips stuttering, another wash of slick that makes fingering sound like the most obscene thing in the world. “Yes? I mean—” He shuts his eyes tight. “Okay, that’s not what I meant. I meant my neck. Just my neck is okay, this time.”

“This time?” Kyungsoo murmurs, but he doesn’t expect Jongin to answer, he can’t, not when he fucks his fingers in faster, the wet sound loud even over, God, the still-playing TV; not when he gets his mouth on Jongin’s mating gland and licks over it. 

“Oh, wow,” Jongin says, “wow that’s,” but no word feels strong enough. His eyes flutter, his eyelashes are soft on his cheek. His dick is so hard. He thinks he might come any moment now. He does, then, great timing, because Kyungsoo sucks on his neck almost too hard, and shit, that’s the best thing, that’s the best fucking thing. He shudders through his orgasm, whining into Kyungsoo’s neck, hole tightening with steady then sporadic spasms around his fingers. Kyungsoo keeps fucking him through the aftershoccks, until Jongin twitches and has to move his neck away. He’s not quite ready to lose the fullness. 

Some time later he blinks awake, still stretched over Kyungsoo’s body, although Kyungsoo is now stroking his hair, the way he always does when they cuddle. Jongin almost purrs, which would be embarrassing, so instead he yawns and closes his eyes again. He wriggles, and Kyungsoo is still hard underneath him, so it wasn’t long. “Hyung?”

“Yeah, baby?” Kyungsoo asks. He sounds like he does when Jongin is in preheat, or it’s three AM and they’re both a little tipsy and can’t fall asleep without warmth. 

Also, Kyungsoo’s fingers are still in him. So. He sounds like that scenario, too? 

God, that was such a good orgasm. Jongin feels like a perfect cliche, like he’s on air, miles above his body, untethered and best for it. “Do you want me to suck you off?”

Kyungsoo pumps his fingers in and out a few times, and Jongin’s breath catches, a reminder that he got two and can take much more. “Why, you want me to knot your mouth?” 

Jongin means to say _don’t be annoying _but what comes up is, “I mean, if you—if that’s what you w—“ 

Kyungsoo removes his fingers, and Jongin groans, arching up for the lost touch. The next sound he makes, whatever it can be classified as, is because Kyungsoo brings his wet fingers up to his mouth and slides them inside. 

“Oh my God,” Jongin says for the hundredth time that day. “Kyungsoo.” 

Kyungsoo’s eyes are definitely alpha and not just weed red this time, and Jongin is so wet, kind of wants to get fingered again. The same way he kind of wanted to kiss Kyungsoo and ended up getting his hole played with. 

”You taste even better than you smell,” Kyungsoo says softly, a guttural undertone that makes Jongin want to present or get on his knees. Okay, maybe he judges those other omegas a little less for getting their mouths knotted in Jongin’s home. He can maybe understand the appeal.  
“Uh,” he says. He means to say something else, maybe even a real word, but then Kyungsoo slips his fingers back into him and teases a third, so real words are at the bottom of his list. 

“Can I finger you again?” Kyungsoo asks. 

“Fuck, yes, please.” But then, he remembers, “this won’t make anything weird, right? Like. You’re my best friend. I don’t wanna ruin that.”

Kyungsoo is quiet for a moment, and just looks into Jongin’s eyes. It feels like hours. Jongin’s sense of time is untethered right now. At last, Kyungsoo says, his voice lower and a weird tone to it, “no. No, this won’t ruin anything. You’re my best friend, too.” Jongin’s second orgasm is even better than the first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to les. first threeish ppl to tell me the song chapter title/summary's from get a paragraph from embarrassing pwps i'll never post, if you want it. if you get the literature ref, maybe two lines from a plot-ish wip? i'm doing free promo...


	4. still standing in the same place where you left me standing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from i am easy to find by the national. warnings for anxiety and a bit of self-loathing. we'll work through it next chapter. thank you to everyone for your nice words; it's been a long summer and they really make my week. enjoy.

“Oh, you’re kidding me,” Baekhyun says when Jongin joins him and Sehun for studying in the library the next day, putting their cup holder of iced coffees on the side table and grabbing a blueberry muffin from the bag Sehun brought before collapsing onto his corner seat. It was one of those alcoves on the highest floor, with the beanbags, privacy, and almost good WiFi. Good enough to stream Netflix, which is what matters half the time. The beanbags are hit or miss with productivity. “I hoped I heard wrong. Sehunnie, didn’t I hope?”

Sehun hums. He grabs his iced coffee. “And I told you not to waste your hope,”

“What did I miss?” Jongin asks. 

“Your last brain cell,” Baekhyun says. “Did you seriously sleep with Kyungsoo?” 

“What?” Jongin asks. “Who told you that?”

“I overheard Kyungsoo talking to Yixing this morning,” Baekhyun says. “But, I mean, I’d hoped the phone was just breaking up.”

“We didn’t really sleep together. I mean, well, we slept in the same bed, but before that he’d just fingered me.”

“I miss when you were ashamed of sex,” says Baekhyun. God, that was a hilarious point in Jongin’s life. When he was a teen, and he and Baekhyun were fucking around in high school, he got embarrassed just thinking about a handjob, dreaded the coming of his heats in the latest stage of puberty. 

“Do you think it’s such a good idea?” Sehun asks.

“It’s just a one off thing.” Twice off, maybe, since he got off twice, but semantics. 

“And if it’s not?”

“Then it’s not. What’s the big deal, Sehunnie? It’s just Kyungsoo, like, this isn’t gonna change anything.”

Baekhyun takes a loud sip from his coffee. 

“Does Kyungsoo agree with that? I mean, Jongin, you know he doesn’t do casual the way you do. I know you care deeply about others, but you don’t always care in the same way they do. Which is fine, of course you’re not obligated to, but not all relationships are worth that risk.”

“Kyungsoo’s not—like that. He’s not gonna think I'm like, friendzoning him, or whatever crap Reddit alphas claim for all their omega friends.”

”There’s bogus friendzoning claims, and then there’s fucking with someone,” Baekhyun says. “You preheat with him.” 

“Sehun did with Junmyeon!” But he realizes that was the wrong example the second he says it. 

“Now we’re mated,” Sehun says flatly. 

“Guys, thanks for caring, but this isn’t, I mean—you’re talking about this like there’s something I don’t know about my relationship with my best friend. It’ll be fine.”

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows. Jongin stares back. At last, he says, “we just want you to be careful. We just want you to… Sehun, finish my thought.”

“We want you to make choices,” Sehun says. He puts his laptop back on his lap. 

Baekhyun frowns. “Okay, that’s—literally D for disappointing. Up your game, Hunnie.”

“No, I get it, hyung.” Jongin takes his notebook and laptop out. “I make choices every day.”

-

He and Kyungsoo have busy weeks, so they don’t talk about what happened, and nothing else happens. Jongin is put on closing shifts almost every day, and Kyungsoo works in the campus library, and it’s midterms week, so he only has time to work, study, and then pass out. Sure, Jongin crawls into Kyungsoo’s bed to sleep whenever he gets home, and sure, they wake up in the middle of the night a few times with Kyungsoo on top of him, grinding his dick into Jongin’s ass and panting in his ear. Kyungsoo always tries apologizing and pulling back, but Jongin will whine something like, “hyung, I’m so wet,” and Kyungsoo groans and goes faster, almost as uncoordinated in those moments as he is asleep. Two nights ago, he pulled their boxers down and did it bare, and Jongin got his dick so wet, he was just so soaked, and the head kept catching on his hole, and maybe, perhaps, he asked Kyungsoo to put it inside, but then Kyungsoo just came, spurting hot seed all over Jongin’s ass, over his hole, and just the feeling, the thought, was enough to make him come, too. 

They don’t mean for it to happen, not really. Jongin worked a double today, so he’s tired, exhausted, even, as he wants a full night's rest. But at some point, Kyungsoo’s bedside alarm reads 4:37, and Jongin’s frantically pushing back on Kyungsoo’s dick, uncontrollable little noises and, yeah, begging Kyungsoo to put it inside. “I want it so bad,” he whines, “hyung, I want—“ 

Kyungsoo shushes him, and sucks on his shoulder. On their sides, their boxers are already pulled down, and there’s nothing but skin and slick between them. 

“Just a little,” Jongin says. He doesn’t think Kyungsoo gets it, how terrible the tease is, for Jongin to be so close to being fucked, and then denied over and over. “Just gimme a little, just—“

“Just the tip?” Kyungsoo finishes, amused. “You’ll take just that and promise to come on it?”

“Yes,” Jongin swears, overwhelmed with need.

“You’d let me shoot off in you? Get your hole dripping with me?” Kyungsoo murmurs. He has a filthier mouth than Jongin expected. He just—says things. Fuck. He sometimes doesn’t act on his dirty promises, but the anticipation of it can be enough to make Jongin come on himself. “Just if I give you the tip?”

“Whatever you want,” Jongin says. “Whatever—hnnfgh,” he says, out of thought and mind when Kyungsoo pushes into him, just a little, just the fat head of his dick stretching Jongin out. “Holy fuck.”

“Whatever I want?” Kyungsoo repeats. He doesn’t even move. Jongin is releasing so much slick around him. “What if what I want is to knot you? Hm?”

“Yeah,” Jongin breathes. His heart pounds in his chest. “Please, yeah, do that—“ He tightens around Kyungsoo’s cock, hopes that’ll convince him to move.

“You’re the one who wanted it. Work for it.” He kisses the center of Jongin’s neck. His voice is slower than usual, still tinged with sleep. 

Jongin groans, but he fucks himself back so shallowly, it shouldn’t even be enough, but Kyungsoo’s words penetrate his mind, and get him so hot for it he shakes. Just the catch on his rim is half the pleasure. He fucks down too much once, and he loses his breath, but Kyungsoo just shushes him again and pulls out a little. This might be the hottest thing Jongin has ever experienced. He retracts that soon, when Kyungsoo palms his dick and kisses his mating gland. Second hottest thing.

“D’ya want me to get you off?” Jongin asks, breathing in deep, deep, the building heat in his stomach too much too fast. “You still won’t let me suck you.”

Kyungsoo pulses precome inside, and bites down gently less than an inch from Jongin’s mating gland. “Just wanna make you feel good,” Kyungsoo says. “Come on, you gonna come?” Jongin moans and nods, eyes shut tight and half-hidden in the pillow. 

“Getting fucked makes me feel good,” Jongin says. 

Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, but Jongin hears the thud of his pulse, and gets engulfed in scent markers all over his body. He tightens his hand around Jongin’s dick and tugs until Jongin whines through an orgasm, come trailing down Kyungsoo’s hand. When Jongin stops panting, Kyungsoo brings his hand to Jongin’s mouth and trails come over his lips until he moans and takes two fingers in, sucking on his own spend until they fall back asleep, just like that. 

Kyungsoo works overnight shifts that weekend, so Jongin contemplates sleeping in his own bed, but decides against it, and bundles up with Kyungsoo’s comforter. He feels colder than normal today, just as yesterday, but breathing in the sharp scent of sex and Kyungsoo when he gets home from a grueling shift at Starbucks at nine o’clock helps, instant relaxation riding through his muscles. He likes being alone, but it is dull today, without Kyungsoo. He finished his midterms, probably even passed them, but no one else has, so even sending memes to hs group chat with Baekhyun, Sehun, and Junmyeon recalls radio silence. 

He mans up and settles for watching bento videos on YouTube until he falls asleep. He almost does, except that Kyungsoo texts him _Hey are you awake?_ at 11:52, so of course he is now. 

_Why, are we sexfkng? _  
_Sexting. Shameful autocorrect _

_I’m at work remember _

Yeah, Jongin knows. But Kyungsoo made a mistake, taking the bait. What, so he would sext Jongin were it not for work? Total rookie mistake. Now Jongin must know. _Oh so you just texted me to tell me you’re a coward?_

_You’re so bad at baiting, Jongin_. Okay, that’s fair. A little embarrassing how quickly Kyungsoo called him down, but fair.  
_Did you eat? I left pasta in the oven for you _

_I did thank you hyung _  
_It was really good _  
_You know you don’t have to always cook for me _

_Of course I don’t have to. I want to _  
_I gotta go but I love you don’t sleep so late_

Jongin smiles and pulls his bottom lip into his mouth. Kyungsoo really is the best friend ever. 

-

Jongin realizes that he’s in preheat again on Tuesday. He and Kyungsoo are getting ready for post-midterms movies with Baekhyun and Yixing, and as he pulls his jeans up, does up and zip, pops the button in—he is thrown by a blur of need so acute he sits back down, bouncing a little on his bed. It’s not a need for sex, but for intimacy, for a closeness beyond human constraints. 

It is not usually this bad. 

He must sit there for too long, because Kyungsoo knocks in warning before coming into his room, his wallet and keys in hand. “Hey, are you re—“ He pauses and inhales. Jongin wants to—he needs to— 

“Uh,” Kyungsoo says. 

He comes closer until he stands between Jongin’s legs. Jongin makes a wounded noise and drops his forehead onto Kyungsoo’s belly, his right hand grasping at Kyungsoo’s grey sweater, wrinkling it with his nails. Maybe this isn’t preheat? Kyungsoo lifts Jongin’s head and looks into his eyes. He tilts his chin, and there’s no way he misses how Jongin tries maintaining eye contact, a little desperate for it. “Your eyes are gold,” Kyungsoo says. “I think, ah, I think you’re in heat. Or almost there. Early stages? You’re, it’s, uh.” Kyungsoo shakes his head. “You smell really—you smell perfect. You smell so good. Um. We, well, do you want me. To call someone.”

Some alphas get weird, sometimes a little stupid when there’s a close omega in heat. It’s reassuring, in a way, that even Kyungsoo, perfect, infallible, level headed Kyungsoo, feels the impact of Jongin’s skin near his. It feels right. 

Jongin shakes his head. ”You’re alpha.”

Kyungsoo won’t look him in the eyes anymore. “Do you wanna spend it alone? Uh, it went okay last time, right? I’ll get you food and a gallon of water and, uh, and your toys.”

Jongin lets him finish that waste of breath, and then says, “Kyungsoo.”

“Yeah?” 

“I want you inside of me,” Jongin says. “Do you not want that?” 

“I want to be inside you, too,” Kyungsoo croaks.

“I am giving you my consent. If you’re not, that’s okay. Can we just—cuddle, maybe, until I need more? If not that…” he swallows, “that’s okay, too. I just. If you want me, like that, I’m yours.”

The air conditioner is on, low just the way Kyungsoo likes it, but it’s like Jongin can feel every prickle of cold, like it burrows deeper, right into his flesh, the softness under his skin. It helps, touching Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo huffs out a laugh. “Not really. It doesn’t work—“ He clears his throat. “I don’t know, Jongin. I’m fine with cuddling, but I don’t know if I can do more. I don’t know if I can do that to myself.”

“It’s just me,” Jongin says. The phrasing stings, although he is not sure why. 

“Yeah, I know. That’s the—“ Kyungsoo flattens his lips. He closes his eyes and breathes in deep a few times. When he opens them again, his eyes are red. “I need to call Yixing. You gonna move to my room or stay here? The scent might help.” Yeah, Kyungsoo’s room smells almost as much like Jongin as it does Kyungsoo. Most nights, Jongin falls asleep there, like his REM won’t activate without Kyungsoo’s face smushed in his neck. 

“Okay,” Jongin says. “Are you coming in after?”

Kyungsoo just repeats, “I need to call Yixing.”

Jongin goes to Kyungsoo’s room and sits on the bed. He wants to call Baekhyun, but Baekhyun is with Yixing, so that’ll make this a whole thing. It seems like Kyungsoo is rejecting him. He is in heat a month after his last one, ad his body can’t decide if it’s hot or cold, and Kyungsoo doesn’t want him. It feels worse than it should, maybe, feels kind of like it did when he had a crush on Minho his freshman year and then he went to the military, like some sort of undeserved abandonment. Undeserved in the sense that he doesn’t deserve to feel like he was abandoned by someone that was never his. And it’s not that—he knows Kyungsoo isn’t his, too, but this feels worse. Shit, this feels worse. 

He’s so anxious; he might throw up, so he leaves the room and goes into the bathroom. He spits into the sink and splashes cold water on his face, and wishes he could undo the inhuman gold of his eyes right now, prods the sore gums where his canines are sharper and longer. Anxious. Heat should not make him this anxious. 

Bathroom is a mistake. Kyungsoo is in the living room, so he hears hushed snippets of Kyungsoo’s conversation: “I fucked up, I fucked up real bad;” “… in heat…” “—get it that that might be why, but it’s not like we really—I know. I know—” “—wants me to…I can’t, Yixing, I can’t—come out of it whole—” “…I know I shouldn’t—any of it. But you know what it’s like, wondering and never knowing—“ 

Yeah. Anxious. His chest is heavy with it. 

He goes back in Kyungsoo’s room and lies back to stare at the ceiling. When Kyungsoo comes in, he clears his throat, but Jongin doesn’t move. “Was that about me?”

“Was what about you?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Jongin says. 

“Okay,” Kyungsoo says. 

“How does me going into heat mean you fucked up? That sounds—like I didn’t think you were the type of alpha—I don’t understand,” Jongin says, lost, sitting up and staring at Kyungsoo with his stupid fucking gold eyes. Kyungsoo’s are still red. “Kyungsoo, I don’t understand, and I need this to not mean what I think it does.”

Kyungsoo leans on his side on the doorframe. He crosses his arms over his chest, and his cellphone hangs off his left hand. “What do you think it means.”

Jongin swallows. “Do you, um. Do you hate that I’m in heat?”

“What?” 

“You smell upset.” Immediately the scent stops flowing out, but Jongin cannot pretend that diminishes his panic. Heat should not be this anxious. Heat should not be this anxious. “And I don’t know what I did, it’s not like, like, I asked to, and now it feels like you’re upset at me because I’m in heat, and it makes me feel so, so shitty, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to be okay with you, like, hating that I’m in heat, as if there’s something wrong with me, when you’re supposed to be my bes—“

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo says, and Jongin shuts up. Other alphas try using this voice to hold authority over Jongin, but it never works, and he just ends up angry and self-righteous. Kyungsoo does it, and it works. He does it, and it’s like the axis of Jongin’s world tilts into his gaze. “I’m not mad that you’re in heat.”

“Then what?”

Kyungsoo purses his lips and looks down at the floor. “I can’t spend this heat with you.”

“Okay. Is that what made you upset? Why?” Jongin asks.

“Because I can't,” Kyungsoo says. 

“Why?” Jongin asks. 

“God, does it even matter, Jongin? Be honest. Will my answer help your heat? It won’t. This isn’t even about—this doesn’t need to be about you.” 

“Why?” Jongin repeats. 

Kyungsoo sighs, and covers his eyes with a fist. “Jongin, please don’t make me say this.”

Jongin doesn’t say anything, just sits there and stares at Kyungsoo, at the slim line down his body, his dark blue socks, the downturn of his mouth. Finally, Kyungsoo says, “look, it’ll ruin me. I can’t keep—doing this to myself, and pretending that it’s fine.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” says Jongin.

“Christ,” Kyungsoo swears. He looks across at the wall behind Jongin, and won’t meet his eyes. “I’m in love with you. Like. That’s, that’s why.”

Jongin thinks his heart might pound out of his chest. “What? Wha—since when?”

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo says. His heart skips a beat. “A while.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” 

Kyungsoo laughs, joyless, empty. “What for? Does this change anything?”

“I mean, I don’t, I don’t know, Kyungsoo, I’ve only known for two minutes. I don’t know what you want me to say.” 

“I’m not asking you to say anything,” says Kyungsoo. Still staring at the wall. “You’re not obligated to say anything. Or feel anything. Just, it’s, that’s why.”

“I’m sorry,” Jongin says, so soft, afraid that anything louder might make this moment feel real. It does feel real. Too real, like a vivid dream, that feels too real to not feel like a nightmare. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Kyungsoo looks at him again, and tilts his head. “Did you really not have even a clue? I mean, Jongin, I haven’t had a relationship last longer than four months in more than—“ He pauses, and realizes that he almost revealed just how long “—in a while. Like, I nest with you. Jongin, we nest, and now your heat is three months early. Doesn’t that—“ He shakes his head. “Forget it. You have nothing to be sorry for. I made shitty decisions, that was my call, and now it’s my issue to deal with.”

“It’s just nesting,” Jongin says desperately, as if Kyungsoo didn’t just tell him that his relationships last the span of Jongin’s heat cycles. Fuck. Shit. What the fuck. 

“No,” Kyungsoo says. He shakes his head. “No, Jongin, it’s not. I’ll call someone to come take care of you. I have to go.”

-

Johnny shows up at the apartment forty-five minutes later, when Jongin is sitting in his bathtub with his knees up and arms around them, staring down at the fuzzy pink and purple water. He kind of wants to call his mother, but say what? _Umma, I just found out Kyungsoo is in love with me, after sleeping with him for a month and getting my heat three months early._ God, she’d drive up to Seoul just to hit him. 

“Uh, Sehun told me to just let myself in,” Johnny says, standing in the entrance to the bathroom. The water is cold, but his skin still burns. Johnny smells sour. Or—Johnny doesn’t smell the way Jongin wishes he smelled like, like the citrus body wash on the wall, like a best friend who kept a secret this big and important from him for God knows how long. “He said you’re in heat.”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” Jongin says. 

“Okay,” Johnny says easily. “What do you need?”

“You can go.” He rolls his head back and stares at the ceiling. “Sorry for wasting your time.” But then, he remembers, “Johnny.”

“Yeah, hyung?”

“Why’d you think I was with someone else, before? You said scent, but no one says that when I smell like Baekhyun, and he’s a beta. What’s—why.” Jongin swallows. 

“Oh, er, well.” He clucks his teeth. “You smelled mated, I guess? You kinda… still do? More? But it makes sense, being here, since he’s your roommate. I guess.” 

“Okay,” Jongin says. “Leave Sehun’s key on the counter, please.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Johnny asks. Fuck, alphas and their fucking complexes. Jongin doesn’t need to be taken care of. So fucking what if he’s in heat and smells miserable. That’s his shit to fix, not whatever sensitive alpha needs to make sure the sad little omega doesn’t cry. Fuck. 

God, he’s being an asshole. “Good night, Johnny.”

“Good night, hyung.” 

Jongin waits until he hears the front door shut. With his senses on high for heat, he listens for the ping of the elevator, the dull thud that means Johnny cannot bear him. He screams, then, just a loud aimless wail, untying the nervous energy in his veins into something less scary. Still, he shakes. God, he’s so fucking dramatic. 

-

What a miserable heat. 

-

Baekhyun lets himself in, too, a few days later, maybe an hour after Jongin finishes panting into Kyungsoo’s pillow with Kyungsoo’s boxers between his teeth, like the worst type of bitch in heat. He’s embarrassed. More than embarrassed; he has to start a full load of laundry just of Kyungsoo’s clothes, his sheets. He has to throw a pillow out because his canines dug in too hard and ripped it. This was the worst, ever. He felt feral for almost all of it, angry at the solitude, angry at himself for being so, so disgusting and needy and stupid. Angry at Kyungsoo, too, for not being here, and then angrier still at himself for being so selfish. It’s a shitty cycle. 

He’s naked and still wet from the shower when Baekhyun meets him in the bathroom. “Put a robe on and come eat,” Baekhyun says. 

“I’m not hungry,” Jongin says, which might be a lie. He had a pack of crackers yesterday and half a dozen sports drinks. 

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Baekhyun says. 

“Did you know?” Jongin asks when he’s in the kitchen, sitting on a barstool and poking at his jajangmyeon. It’s store-bought. 

“Know what?” Baekhyun asks, raising an eyebrow and taking a long sip from a green smoothie. 

“You know what,” Jongin sighs. “All those cryptic lectures, telling me not to be thoughtless. You knew.”

“You’ll have to be more specific before I can say what I do or don’t know,” Baekhyun says. 

“That—“ Jongin swallows, a click in his throat. “That Kyungsoo was, is in love with me.” 

Baekhyun hums. “Oh, that? Who told you that?”

“Who—?” Jongin drops his chopsticks. “What do you mean, who? Kyungsoo did. Jesus fuck, who else knows?”

Baekhyun shrugs. “A number. Everyone, probably. Yixing and Chanyeol have known longest, but, sorry, I accidentally eavesdrop on a lot of Xing’s calls.” 

“How long, hyung?” Jongin asks, throat dry. 

“Kyungsoo tell you?” Baekhyun asks. He sounds a lot calmer and nonchalant than Jongin expected. He has to know by now that it wasn’t a lighthearted chat, that led to Jongin finding out, but he’s still—well, not quite normal, but neutral. 

Jongin shakes his head. 

“Well, wait for him to tell you. Eat your noodles, Nini, they’ll get cold.”

“I just feel so stupid,” Jongin admits. “And horrible. I wasn’t, hyung, I wasn’t trying to fuck with him. He said—“ His voice breaks, and he clears his throat and tries again. “He said it would ruin him. I can’t stop hearing that. Like. To imagine I ruined him. That I could. I didn’t mean to be so selfish. I didn’t know.”

“Intent doesn’t always matter, compared to effect.” Baekhyun shrugs again. He’s so good at remaining calm and level in moments like this, and it in turn calms the noise in Jongin’s head. Baekhyun faces the facts as they are; the faster they deal with it, the faster they move on. This is difficult for Jongin, who mopes and wallows and shakes, sometimes, with a deep heaviness. He is grateful all the same. “But Kyungsoo knew what he was doing, and he knew you didn’t know. No, shush, don’t give me _you should’ve known_ crap. Maybe you should’ve. But you didn’t. I mean, Jonginnie, you’re both adults. You both had friends warning you against sleeping together, but you did. What more to say? You both can and will deal with the blowback. And you’ll be fine after! Really. It sucks now, but then it won’t, and you’ll be okay.”

“You make it sound so simple, hyung,” Jongin mutters. His cheeks heat. 

“Duh, I’m outside of it. Literally if you do not finish your noodles now I’ll eat you.”

Jongin finishes his noodles, and Baekhyun huddles him to his bedroom, where the smell of Kyungsoo is faint. “Hyung,” Jongin says, lying shoulder to shoulder on Jongin’s bed. The covers are pulled up to their necks, and the air conditioning is set on and cold, the best to fall asleep to. 

“Yeah, Nini bear?” Baekhyun yawns, scooting closer. Jongin feels bad. It’s still morning, and Baekhyun closes the noodle place he works at on Thursdays, so Jongin realizes and appreciates the sacrifice he made to come by at ten AM. He hopes he doesn’t fuck up the relationship with this best friend like he has with Kyungsoo. 

“I don’t know what to say to him,” Jongin admits. 

“Hm?” Baekhyun prompts. 

Jongin lowers his voice, heart frantic and nervous. “Can you be unsure if you love someone? In love. I—I just feel like I need to think about it, like. But it’s like everyone expects you to just know, right away, or your answer later on doesn’t matter.”

Baekhyun shifts sideways and clings to Jongin, leg and arm curled over his body, face smushed to his collarbone. “You don’t have to know right away. I didn’t.”

“Really?” Jongin asks in disbelief. “But you and Yixing hyung… I mean, you guys were perfect once you knew you were mated.”

“I mean, maybe. But you know we mated on accident, right? Like, I’m always biting people,” and he nips at Jongin’s skin, a sharp little bite that makes Jongin yelp and Baekhyun laugh, “and we only, uh, knew because I accidentally bit his mating gland. And then he went into rut.”

“Seriously? Why did you never say?”

“I mean.” Baekhyun yawns again. “I don’t know. We didn’t wanna jinx it, in case it didn’t work out. We just played at being proper mates for the first, bleh, month? And of course I knew I loved him, and yeah the universe was all like blah blah you’re mates whatever, but I didn’t know I was in love with him. And he just said okay. And then you know the rest, his corny _I’ve been waiting for you forever, honey _crap, that made me suck his dick at a train station.” 

“Okay, you couldn’t have ended on a worse note,” Jongin says. 

“Nini, I’m telling you, when I saw his dick, I slapped myself—“ “Please do not say anything more—“ “Like a month wasted! Without it down my throat! Do you even rea—“ “Don’t don’t don’t don’t—“ “—lize the trauma of that, the deprivation, the long delayed gratification of a fa—“ Jongin covers his ears, but Baekhyun gets close as possible and continues directly into his ear, “—of a facial, in a dirty station bathroom. It was so romantic. So dreamy.”

“Ugh,” Jongin says, grimacing. Baekhyun laughs, the loud gleeful one he gets when he successfully fucks with someone. 

“The moral of the story,” Baekhyun starts.

“Not to suck dick in public restrooms?”

“No, shut up, you’d definitely do that, you’re not better than me.” He bites Jongin again. “It’s to give yourself time. You don’t have to be in love with him just ‘cause he’s in love with you. But if you are, that’s cool, and you have time to decide that, and when or if you tell him, and how that plays out.”

“Can we just do what you and Yixing did?” Jongin mumbles, turning his face to speak into Baekhyun’s hair. 

“Absolutely not,” Baekhyun says. “You two already fucked it up pretending friends with benefits isn’t a myth. Also, I mean, you’re already kinda dating.” 

“What?” Jongin says, shocked. “No, we’re not.”

“Use recent new information to really think about that,” Baekhyun says. 

Jongin closes his eyes. “I’m done thinking,”

“Jongin-ah, babe, know this comes from a place of love, but did you ever start?” Yeah. That’s fair.


	5. if nothing scares you about me and you, never put me down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long. story and chapter title from oblivions by the national. enjoy.

Kyungsoo doesn’t come home that day, even though Jongin knows he knows that the heat is over. Baekhyun won’t tell Jongin where he’s staying, but the store-bought noodles give Jongin an important clue. Kyungsoo doesn’t come the day after, too, and Jongin cannot spend a full week without the most important person in his life. He hates that he might have to. 

He does more thinking in those two days than in the past two weeks—_two months_, Baekhyun says, when Jongin calls him and thinks aloud over the phone. _Yeah, thanks, hyung, I get it._ He feels so aware of every careless thing he said or did. All the times he slept with other alphas right after nesting with Kyungsoo—God. And of course, Jongin believes he can sleep with whoever he wants, whenever he wants, so long as he’s single, but it was insensitive, wasn’t it, to confuse Kyungsoo’s base wolf instincts that way. He didn’t think it was a big deal. He was wrong. 

He wonders how long. 

He remembers getting drunk and bragging about the alphas he dated; he remembers his head lolling on Kyungsoo’s shoulder in the back of an Uber on the way home from the club, holding Kyungsoo’s hands between his after making out with someone else fifteen minutes earlier, their lip balm still softening his mouth. How many times did he crawl into Kyungsoo’s bed and ask to be held? How many times did he ask for reassurance, for Kyungsoo to promise him he did well, murmur pet names in his ear, call him _baby_ and _sweetheart_ until he fell asleep? He doesn’t know, not even now, what he gave Kyungsoo that ever matched all he gave Jongin. 

He asks Sehun this on Saturday, the second conscious day without Kyungsoo, and he says, “I think he, like, needs to take care of you. He just does it too much. Beyond care for himself.”

“That doesn’t make me feel much better,” Jongin admits.

“Oh, I’m not trying to make you feel better,” Sehun says. “‘M just being honest. If you wanted yes men you coulda gone with those horny betas and alphas from dance.”

“Hey,” Baekhyun protests, “Xing and I are horny beta and alpha from dance, and we hate telling Jongin yes. Well, I’m working on it with Yixing, but he improves every day.”

“Not all horny betas and alphas,” Sehun says. “Most.”

“Most,” Baekhyun agrees. “Bad timing, but isn’t Soo just a horny alpha who can’t say no to Jongin?”

“Best timing,” Sehun says. 

“Horny for love,” says Baekhyun. 

“Like his heart is hard,” Sehun says. 

“His dick is wet with affection,” Baekhyun says. 

“This still isn’t helping,” Jongin says. 

Sehun grins, teeth between his tongue. “Well, let’s not be repetitive, Jonginnie. You know who knows what you offer Kyungsoo? Wild guess.”

“Chanyeol,” Jongin says.

“Oh, actually, he’s mad at you, and you know he’s intense when he’s mad, so be careful in class,” Baekhyun says. “Maybe skip.” Baekhyun tilts his head. “Maybe drop out.”

Jongin laughs for the first time all week. 

“Jonginnie,” Sehun says. 

“Yeah,” Jongin says. “Yeah, I’ll call him.”

Calling seems easier during a mood-lifting conversation with friends. Alone in the night time, little seems possible. 

_how long_

Two AM, but Kyungsoo answers right away. _Maybe two_.

_Maybe?_

_I didn’t sit down and discuss it with myself. It just happened. Sorry._

_please don’t be sorry_  
Then, _when arey ou coming home_.  
Then, _im the one thats sorry_.  
Then, _I miss you_.

Kyungsoo doesn’t reply. 

-

It is impolite to show up to someone’s home without call, so Jongin tampers down the need to drive to Minseok’s apartment—it has to be Minseok’s, he knows it has to be—at two in the morning, but he doesn’t have the same restraint holding him from going to the library at six o’clock, before the sun is up and when the October air puffs with each breath. There are three other cars in the parking lot, and one is always there, so he knows that Kyungsoo can’t claim he’s too busy to speak to Jongin. That— is not something Jongin is used to, Kyungsoo being too busy for him, but he deserves it, now. 

He pulls his arms tighter around his chest and walks in. His jackets are too thin, so he has on one of Kyungsoo’s warm parkas, and it makes him feel more alone. 

On the elevator, he realizes that he doesn’t know what to say. He never had to go after someone before, never had to be the chaser, the one who wants someone else bad enough to need it. He wonders if that is what love is, but it—doesn’t feel right, somehow, to say he’s in love with Kyungsoo from this. There’s too much possessive ache in his bones right now. It shouldn’t hurt, should it? Yet he hurt Kyungsoo. God. 

Still. This isn’t right for him. He needs things to be okay with them as friends, as people outside of each other, before anything else. He imagined something dramatic, like he would know at the spark of a memory, that he would burst into the library and fall to his knees in front of Kyungsoo, beg him to come back home; tell him that he fell in love with him when they met. But Kyungsoo hates spectacle, and that’s not true. He does not yet know how to untangle the tight and tender space in his chest that promises a love for Kyungsoo that will never fade; he does not know where or if the distinction is there for love and being in love. 

At the archives desk, Kyungsoo is sitting with his legs up on the counter and a heavy book in his lap. Something about military prostitution between the States and Korea. Great. Light reading for a light conversation. He looks fine, which is good; no thinner or paler, no bags under his eyes. He’s in all black, sure, but he always is, a beanie pulled down over his head and a loose sweater. Baekhyun got clothes for him when he came by the first day, even though he wouldn’t tell Jongin where the clothes were staying. 

“You’re here,” Kyungsoo says. His voice is even. His gaze is even. Nothing seems different, at first sight, but his scent is off. Jongin never realized how—warm, and inviting it is, like home, like a feeling beyond home, until it went off. 

Jongin puts his hands in his jean pockets. “I tried giving you space.”

“I noticed,” Kyungsoo says. “How’d it go?”

“It was terrible,” Jongin admits. “I hated it.” He swallows. “I’m sorry.”

“What for?” 

“For,” he tilts his head towards Kyungsoo. “You know for what.” Why are his friends so cryptic? 

Fuck. He knows that’s not fair. He’s probably just dense.

“You didn’t do anything to me,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m fine.”

“Kyungsoo-yah,” Jongin says. 

“Jongin. I’m at work, so please just get it out.”

“I was insensitive.” He shifts his feet and looks down at his battered grey Nikes. “You’re, I mean. You know, you’re in love with me, and I used that malleability to my benefit without thinking about the consequences.”

“Did you practice that in a mirror?” Kyungsoo asks. 

Jongin’s ears get hot. “With Baekhyun, which might be worse.”

Kyungsoo’s cheek twitches, the barest hint of a smile. It almost knocks Jongin out. He’s back at poker face when he says, “you didn’t know. I didn’t tell you, so you didn’t know. That’s not your fault.”

“So you’re not upset?” Jongin asks. 

“Of course I’m upset,” Kyungsoo says evenly. “I made shit decisions and set myself up to get fucked over.” Jongin winces. “That doesn’t mean I get to be upset at _you_.” 

“Hyung,” Jongin says. He feels overwhelmed. “I was an asshole. Don’t you feel, like, I don’t know, I feel like—I accidentally frien—“

“Don’t,” Kyungsoo says, short. “That’s not real. It isn’t some great burden, being in,” he pauses and clears his throat, “I mean, being in love with you.” 

“You still are?” Kyungsoo looks away. Jongin can't help adding, “you won’t come home.”

Kyungsoo still doesn’t look at him. “I don’t want to pressure you or make you uncomfortable.”

“You’ve never made me uncomfortable,” Jongin says softly. He rocks back on his heels. “You won’t even hold me accountable on this. I mean, like, you get to be upset. I’m not—I know you probably think I’m just being hard on myself, and I guess I am, but I think _you’re_ being too hard on yourself. I was warned against it, even with the guise of, like, alpha instinct, and I still thought even that wasn’t a valid issue. I don’t want you to dump this all on yourself. You can’t control your feelings.”

Kyungsoo looks at him, and a knot releases in his stomach. “You can’t,” he agrees. “Which is why I don’t want you to think you’re obligated to feel bad or console me. Jongin-ah.”

“Yes, hyung,” Jongin says. 

“I’m not mad at you,” Kyungsoo says. “I’m upset, and some of that is directed to you, but I’m not mad at you. I haven’t been home because I need to work this through myself, and I don’t want to take it out on you or fall back into expecting more from you than you can give.” 

“Oh,” Jongin says. In a movie, he thinks this would be when the lightbulb goes on over his head, when the shadowed cloud fades away, when the narrator says _and this is when, finally, Jongin realizes he is in love with his best friend_. A car backfires outside, and the automated air conditioning goes on. So much of the world goes on. “I’m in love with you.”

Instantly, Kyungsoo’s face goes hard, all caution and softness gone. His jaw tightens. “Don’t.”

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin starts. His chest is full, now, none of that aching emptiness that controlled his week. He thinks that emptiness was the absence of love, the absence of Kyungsoo. He doesn’t devalue the love he had for him before, but he understands now, so clearly, why this is different than when Baekhyun is mad at him, why the loss feels sharp. This wasn’t just loss. It was yearning. 

“Now you’re being cruel,” Kyungsoo snaps. “Fuck, Jongin, I’m trying to be fair about this, but it’s not fair that you know, now, and you—“ His breath shakes. “Don’t be cruel. Please. I can’t take that. I’ll believe you, and I’ll fucking—tear myself out to believe you.”

“I didn’t know until just now,” Jongin say, and hopes that Kyungsoo believes him. He has to. He knows his pulse is sure. “I’ve been trying to discern—I didn't know until now, I swear, but the way you speak about these things—“

“I’m speaking about you. You can’t—Jesus fuck, Jongin, you can’t say you’re in love with me just because I put you before myself. That’s not healthy. That’s exactly what I’m working out of. Fuck.”

“Just let me speak and don’t interrupt me,” Jongin says, trying not to be impatient in this fragile situation. “Let me finish.” Kyungsoo clenches his jaw again, but says nothing. “I’ve been trying to figure it out all week, how I would discern the general way I love you to see if there’s something different there, something fundamentally different than how I love Baekhyun or Sehun. And—and I think that was the wrong way to go about it. I was worried that, while being more critical about how I treat you—don’t interrupt me, I’m serious—that we’d fallen into an unhealthy codependency. And I don’t want that. I don’t want—like, what I want is for us to be okay, and wouldn’t be if I realized—ah, fuck, I can’t say this right.”

“Sorry, excuse me,” someone behind Jongin says, a girl with dark purple hair and a hoodie that goes down to her knees. “Uh, do you know where can I find Goryeo law?”

“Fourth floor west,” Kyungsoo says, a light flush to his cheeks. “There’s a database search on the library website to help you find specific works, too. Would you like help navigating it?”

The girl glances at Jongin. “No, thanks, I’ll figure it out. Thanks! Bye!” and jogs away. 

Kyungsoo sighs. “Can this wait until after work, Jongin?”

“No,” Jongin says. “Look. It’s not about how you speak about me. It’s about the effort you’re putting to make your feelings healthier, and how careful you are not to blame me for reciprocating your feelings. Immediately, anyway. Like. Even though you’ve been—you’ve felt this way about me for this long, for years, Kyungsoo, you care enough about our friendship to not let your love for me, platonic or otherwise, become something toxic and rotten. Do I make sense? I’m just in awe of you, of the type of person you are, and I want to be even closer to you than we already are, and I want to learn this tenderness and caution, and I want to treat you with the same care, until we die.”

Kyungsoo inhales. 

“You were speaking, and I couldn’t imagine caring more about what anyone else thinks of me.” Jongin shakes his head. “I know I can’t just be in love with you because you put yourself last. I’m in love with you because you care enough to change that. I don’t want our feelings for each other to feel like rotten work.”

“Nothing about how I feel for you is rotten,” Kyungsoo whispers. There it is, Jongin thinks. Longing doesn’t have to hurt. 

“Come home,” Jongin says. 

“Do you mean it?” Kyungsoo asks. The light is softer up here, since there are so many old and delicate books, and it makes Kyungsoo look infinite. He is beautiful. Jongin knew this, but now he understands it a bit more. 

“I am,” says Jongin. “I mean, I do. Come home.”

“I’m at work,” Kyungsoo says. His eyes are bright. 

“But I want…“ He sucks his teeth and tampers down the entitlement. Baekhyun says Kyungsoo spoiled him pretty, and Jongin hates it, seriously, when Baekhyun is right. 

“What do you want?”

“You,” Jongin answers, and the weight of it makes the skin around his mating spot feel raw. 

“That’s it? Nothing from me?” 

He shakes his head. “Just you.”

Kyungsoo smiles, something so open and relaxed and real about his happiness. When he says, “I love you. I’m in love with you,” it doesn’t sound like something wretched forced out of him. 

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin breathes. 

“Say it,” Kyungsoo demands. “I wanna hear you say it again.” 

Jongin gets closer to the counter, after all this time, and presses his palms flat down. There’s still a low rise between any contact, and Kyungsoo doesn’t move in. “I’m in love with you.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes darken, red around the pupil. “I can’t pretend to do casual. I wanna be upfront now.”

“Hyung, I preheat with you,” Jongin says, mouth quirking up; odd that he’s repeating the same obvious fact that his friends do. It’s embarrassing. “Nothing about us was ever casual.”

Kyungsoo sits up. “Come here.” Jongin starts to walk around, and Kyungsoo shakes his head. “Stay there. Just lean in.” When Jongin does, Kyungsoo leans in, too, and pulls him down and too close with a hand grabbing his collar, their cheeks pressed side to side. Kyungsoo murmurss into his ear, “when I get home, I’m gonna fuck you like you’ve been asking for, until I knot you and it takes and takes, until you’re sloppy wet and crying.” Oh. “And then I’m gonna fuck you again.” He pulls back. Aloud, while Jongin is fucking—short of breath, literally about to have a heart attack at the archives desk in the library, Kyungsoo says, “bye, Jongin,” pointed and clear. He sits back down, and puts his feet back on the counter, and goes back to his book, and doesn’t even look at Jongin again. 

Jongin spends ten minutes in the car before he can drive. Fuck. 

-

Jongin spends the rest of the day doing essays at Starbucks, camped out at a corner armchair and getting free frappuccinos from his coworkers. He transitions to green tea after three, since he thinks he might die with anymore sugar or caffeine in his system, and he can’t die before Kyungsoo knots him. Yes, that’s his main concern. 

He has so much work to catch up on, after falling behind with an unexpected heat, but instead of staying at Starbucks all day like he should, he’s up and heading out at exactly 2:55 PM, right before Kyungsoo usually heads home from the early morning shifts. Jongin expects to get there before him, and dissociates most of the drive home, like the temporary spaces between him and Kyungsoo aren’t real. He’s kind of overwhelmed. It feels impossible, that they have their shit together right now, that he finally knows the mystery chasm keeping Kyungsoo from being honest with him. It feels too easy, knowing that he’s in love with Kyungsoo. He wonders if there is a shoe waiting to drop. 

It’s Kyungsoo, though. Things have always been easy with him, even when they shouldn’t be. He just hopes this fizzling anticipation will disappear soon. What else is there, on the other end of this?

-

At home, there’s a small pot of stew simmering on the oven, and Spam musubi and pajeon on their dining table. The shower runs in the background, and Jongin is so happy to be home and know that Kyungsoo is, too. 

He changes into short sweats and a worn t-shirt, and then checks if there’s rice in the cooker. There is, so he does his part with dishing it out and washing two bowls for whenever the soup is ready.

When Kyungsoo exits the bathroom, a wave of steam and warmth coming with him, Jongin is sitting on the sofa with his legs propped up, and watching a YouTube video for twenty air fryer recipes. 

“You gonna start cooking?” Kyungsoo asks. They have an air fryer, a Christmas gift from Jongin’s sister to Kyungsoo, and Kyungsoo used it for every meal when it came, literal glee every time he watched it cook. 

Jongin tilts his head over the back of the couch, looking at Kyungsoo upside down. Jongin took out his contacts and only the kitchen light is on, so the sight is a little fuzzy, but beautiful nonetheless. Kyungsoo is in boxers and one of Jongin’s sweaters, and Jongin loves the way it falls over his shoulder, loose enough that his collarbone shows underneath. Jongin loves that. He loves seeing Kyungsoo in his clothes. It satisfies something deep within, like all the possessive omega tropes brought to life. 

“Making sure you’re not poisoning me,” Jongin says. 

Kyungsoo snorts and pushes his glasses up on his nose. “Right, after I’ve made most of your meals for three years.” 

“Most crimes are committed by someone the victim knows,” Jongin says. “Are you gonna come kiss me?”

“Did you turn the stew off?” 

“Uh,” Jongin says. “You didn’t say.”

“I hoped the two notes on the table and rice cooker would help,” Kyungsoo says. Okay, yeah, so rice is Jongin’s job, but he was just—so focused on the actual rice. No time for distraction. 

“I can’t read, hyung,” Jongin says. “Kissing me might fix that.”

“Only good omegas who follow directions get kisses,” Kyungsoo jokes, but, well, Jongin must be on edge, because heat twists in his belly, and he licks his lips. “But I want a kiss,” Jongin says. 

“Then come get it yourself,” Kyungsoo says, walking away into the kitchen. 

Jongin pauses the video and follows Kyungsoo into the kitchen. He’s at the stove when Jongin gets in, stirring the soondubu. Jongin drapes himself over his back and looks over and down. “Your chin is pointy,” Kyungsoo says. “And the stew is half of what it originally was, since you didn’t turn it off, so now there’s none for dinner, and i’m gonna starve.”

“We could do that frozen pizza or, like, leftover rice with kimchi.” Jongin pauses. “Or you could eat me out.” 

“Tell me again, and I might consider it,” Kyungsoo says, voice a little lower, a little deeper.

“What, that I’m in love with you? Or that you should eat me out?”

“Both sound good,” Kyungsoo murmurs. Jongin leans down to bury his face into Kyungsoo’s neck and breathes in deep. Out of—it feels like out of nowhere, to Jongin, Kyungsoo releases just a smothering of scent markers, so potent and concentrated that Jongin has to close his eyes against the sensation. It’s a wave of affection, something tender and warm and wanting. It feels like want. Like more than want: 

“Oh,” Jongin breathes. It overwhelms him. “Hyung. Is that for me?”

Kyungsoo hums, and doesn’t move. He’s not even stirring the soondubu. 

“Why?” Jongin asks. It feels like love, like something that must compress and consume. It’s familiar. He doesn’t know how long he’s felt this for Kyungsoo; he wishes he knew earlier how to understand this feeling. He knew it was different, but his relationship with Kyungsoo was always different, a different closeness than anyone else. 

“It’s always like this,” Kyungsoo says. “You always make me feel like this.”

Jongin learned to control scent markers early on. It’s standard manners training: say please, thank you, and don’t release your scent without permission. Of course, everyone slips up, just like everyone forgets to say please sometimes, but it’s often impolite. There are exceptions. His parents always told him that when he found his mate, he didn’t have to be so careful around them. They said it would feel safe, like ballet in the spring or grandmother’s lavender tea, and that he would know, deep in his bones, that he never had to hide with that person. 

“Oh,” he repeats. He releases his, too, and Kyungsoo inhales. For a few moments, they just stand there. 

-

“Doesn’t feel all that different,” Jongin says, picking apart a bite of pajeon with his chopsticks. 

“It’s not,” Kyungsoo agrees. “Don’t chew with your mouth open.”

“Yes, alpha,” Jongin intones, raising an eyebrow and making a show of following instruction. 

Kyungsoo’s ears go pink, and his scent goes a little tangier with arousal. “Oh my God,” Jongin says, “are you into that?”

“Eat your food,” Kyungsoo says, and stuffs most of a musubi into his mouth. 

“I can’t believe the guy I’m dating gets turned on from being called alpha. Will that make you knot me faster when we fuck, if I’m like,” and Jongin adopts a lower, breathy voice, “alpha, knot me, I want you to knock me up, alpha,” and then drops his voice back to normal, “you’ll just, like, come?”

Kyungsoo is red all over now, even down to his neck, and his eyes are tinged pink. “Fuck off.”

“Oh my God,” Jongin laughs. He puts a spoonful of rice in his stew, and takes a big bite with tofu. “I can't wait to test this theory.”

“Are we dating?” Kyungsoo asks, a swift but effective change of topic. 

“I thought you said you didn’t do casual,” Jongin says. He doesn’t bother freaking out; Kyungsoo’s scent still holds that effervescent glow. 

Kyungsoo twists his mouth. “Are we _just_ dating?” 

“Baekhyun says we were already dating,” Jongin says.

“You’re the one who said it doesn’t feel different. Yah, why are you picking out all the egg in your musubi, you’re not gonna get full.”

“I had Seulgi smuggle me three frappucinos at work,” Jongin says. 

“That’s not an answer the way you think it is,” says Kyungsoo.

Jongin ignores that. Instead, he draws back around to their main conversation. “It doesn’t feel different. This is what we do most days, except now there’s, like, the knowing.”

“And the scent markers,” Kyungsoo says.

“Yeah,” Jongin says, lips quirking up. “And the scent markers. And the fact that I got my heat three months early. After you sucked on my mating gland.”

Kyungsoo freezes for just a second, and there’s an uptick of panic in his scent. “I don’t—want this just to be happening because you think—because we’re probably—it was never about that, for me. That’s not…” He struggles to finish a sentence, words rushing over each other.

“It’s not,” Jongin promises. “Hyung, I swear it’s not. I’m an idiot, probably—” 

“— don’t call yourself that—” 

“—shhh, I don’t need a pep talk, I’m not being that mean to myself. I was on edge earlier, like there was something else I was missing, like the other shoe was gonna drop. Then I got home.”

“Mm hmm.” Kyungsoo takes a long sip of his water.

“And you were home early enough to make a full meal and shower, even though I timed it, to be here before you.”

“Wow.” Kyungsoo says, the asshole. “You gonna get to the point before the sun sets?”

“You know my point, fucker. Were you gonna tell me you’re going into rut or was I supposed to just find out when you go feral and start whining?”

“I don’t even go that feral,” Kyungsoo mumbles. He clears his throat. “I don’t want you to feel—”

“Obligated, yeah, I know. Hey. Hyung.”

Kyungsoo looks up from his food. “Yeah, baby?” 

That makes Jongin warm. He likes when Kyungsoo calls him pet names. “I love you.”

Kyungsoo guffaws, honest to God, he guffaws, Jongin wishes he captured it in action to make it a Live Photo wallpaper—laughs so hard he snorts, a pure joy there that fills Jongin with every good feeling in the world. His eyes crescent with the smile, and his teeth and gums show. Kyungsoo covers his face, embarrassed, but Jongin just puts his chin on his palm and stares at Kyungsoo. He feels so fond. “You’re ridiculous,” Kyungsoo says behind his hand. 

“Do you not want me to say it?”

“No, you have to say it at least once every two hours,” Kyungsoo says seriously, although there’s still a brightness in his eyes. “I got you on a timer.”

“Wow,” Jongin says. “I love a decisive alpha.” 

The food is getting cold, and Jongin realizes that three frappuccinos really isn’t a meal, so they eat the rest without interruption. Jongin washes the dishes, and Kyungsoo puts them in the dishwasher to dry. 

“I do wanna help you through it,” Jongin says. 

Kyungsoo doesn’t even pretend not to know what Jongin means. “I get really… intense. And this one will probably be worse.”

“It’s rut, not our wedding night,” Jongin says. “If you’re not intense, I’m gonna feel very neglected.”

“I get, uh, dirty. I mean, I’m not as nice as I would be outside of it,” Kyungsoo warns.

“This is only getting me hard,” Jongin says. Anyway, if he knows anything, he knows that Kyungsoo has a filthy mouth. Imagining those promises is the only thing that got Jongin through his heat. “Besides, it’s not like this’ll be the first rut I help with.”

Kyungsoo’s scent blasts displeasure, and when Jongin looks over, he’s scowling down at the rice cooker pot. “You really shouldn’t say that to an alpha going into his mating rut,” Kyungsoo says lowly. Jongin feels a glee at that, at _mating rut_. God. That’s because of him. 

“Then you’ll just have to make sure I forget that any other alpha ever fucked me.” He pauses. It's probably not a good idea to goad Kyungsoo. But—“and you’ll have to work really hard for that.”

Kyungsoo drops the pot he’s been glaring at for three minutes and grabs Jongin’s forearm, making him splash a serving spoon back into the soapy water. “Let’s prep you.” He looks over Jongin. His eyes are red, blood red. “You’re gonna need it.”

-

“Hi, alpha,” Jongin says, lying on his back on his bed and leaning up on his elbows as Kyungsoo removes the sweater in front of him. Jongin is naked already and he’s rewarded for it with the swell of Kyungsoo’s cock in his boxers and the hungry focus in his eyes as he kneels in front of Jongin and pulls him down by the calf, so that Jongin is straddling his shoulders. 

“Hi, sweetheart,” Kyungsoo says. He runs his nose up Jongin’s leg, and then his thigh, getting in close to the crease where sweat and scent concentrate. Jongin is wet already, and he really hopes Kyungsoo’s gonna eat him out. He took a sad shower this morning before going to Kyungsoo, which means that he’s squeaky clean and perfect for his alpha. “I’m really close to it, don’t—don’t distract me, because when it hits, it hits hard, and I’m not gonna worry about fingering you then.”

“I don’t mind a little burn,” Jongin says, rubbing his thumb on Kyungsoo’s earlobe. 

“It’s gonna burn no matter what,” Kyungsoo says, and somehow even that sounds dirty. Wow. Kyungsoo has that type of voice.

He slides his index and middle fingers over Jongin’s crease, right over his hole, getting his fingers wet and flicking his fingers under Jongin’s balls. Jongin gasps, gets even wetter, and Kyungsoo groans. “Your hole smells so good,” he says. 

“It’s yours,” Jongin promises, face hot at how, like, intently Kyungsoo stares at his hole, eyes burning with hot-red arousal. Kyungsoo told him as they washed the dishes that he gets possessive in rut, even though he tries not to be otherwise, and Jongin is usually a good modern omega, but he does want this alpha to know that he owns him, that all of Jongin is his to have and take. Kyungsoo is his, too, long before Jongin knew for certain. 

Kyungsoo traces circles around Jongin’s slick hole, and when Jongin’s breathing gets heavy with the effort of not begging for more, not this fast, Kyungsoo presses two fingers inside. Fuck, thank God. If Kyungsoo started with one, Jongin would kill him. 

It feels just as good as last time, the way Kyungsoo fucks his fingers into Jongin’s body, maybe better, because now he knows that Kyungsoo will fuck him, knot him, come deep inside until Jongin shakes from it. 

“Three,” Jongin says. “Three, now.” 

Kyungsoo sucks on the thin skin on his inner thigh, and angles his fingers up and deep until it hits right, and presses his thumb on Jongin’s perineum at the same time. Jongin moans, loud and unexpected, almost a whine behind his teeth. “‘S that how you ask your hyung?” Rut is near, though, Jongin smells the heady musk as it washes over Kyungsoo’s scent, so Kyungsoo doesn’t press for manners like Jongin knows he wants to. He adds the third, fucking it in on the next thrust forward, and then immediately teases a fourth at the edge of Jongin’s hole. 

“Ah, hyung,” Jongin breathes. He wriggles closer and tries to spread his legs wider, his heels braced on the back of Kyungsoo’s head. “Feels good.”

“I think about this all the time,” Kyungsoo says. “When I’m having a bad day, I think about how much it’d help if I could watch you come, see you squirt all over your belly, if I was the one who did that for you.” He dips his last finger inside, and Jongin throws his head back, fingers digging into the comforter. “Could have a good day and I think how fucking incredible it’d be to knot you. I bet you’ll take all of my cock, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Jongin says, yes, he thinks, yes, yes, like his mind is barren to anything beyond this moment. 

“Can I lick you out?” Kyungsoo asks, looking up at Jongin through his eyelashes and pressing his fingers all the way in. Jongin nods. Of course he nods, he hasn’t lost his fucking mind, he’s been thinking about this since the first time Kyungsoo fingered him, idly thought about it last year when he walked in—he should be better at knocking, he’s such a brat about Kyungsoo’s personal space—on Kyungsoo eating someone out in his room, the loud, wet sounds of an omega, the loud, wet cries out of that omega’s mouth. He knew that person, worst of all, so he’d unfollowed him on Instagram and pretended it was a glitch when he stopped being annoyed two weeks later. He said he was annoyed that it was in their apartment, too, and Kyungsoo really hadn’t fully closed his door that time, but, well.

“Stop thinking,” Kyungsoo says, 

“But I’m thinking about how I love you,” Jongin says, and this is surely a mating rut, because just that makes Kyungsoo’s entire scent change; the affection and tenderness blanketed now by a thick push of arousal, more than before, like it controls all of him. His eyes are raw, intense, too vivid. Alphas experience rut differently then omegas experience heat. There’s usually an element of nesting, when it’s normal and not a mating cycle, but it transitions more quickly than heat. Omegas get the closeness at the start of heat, where it’s less about sex and moreso a matter of intimacy, of want. Alphas snap into rut with the blink of an eye, and they get so needy and wild. Feral. They get feral, no matter how Kyungsoo wants to pretend otherwise. When Kyungsoo told Jongin no during heat, Jongin was pissed off and moody, but he dealt with it. If Jongin tells Kyungsoo no right now, yeah, of course, he will back off, but he’ll whine and curl up into a fetal position, a pained expression on his face, maybe bite his fist to stop the wounded animal noises from getting too loud. They come less often than heat, every five-ish months instead of four, but that’s fair, Jongin thinks. He loves most heats. Kyungsoo never speaks about his ruts. He hopes they feel better after this one. 

He’s not much for pretending right now, fuck, not as he pulls his fingers out and dives right into Jongin’s hole, his mouth latching onto Jongin’s rim, kissing it sloppy, as Jongin arches his back, his hands now gripping the short cut of Kyungsoo’s hair and nape, making sure he stays as close as possible. 

Kyungsoo’s breathing is ragged, like he’s not getting enough air in as he eats Jongin out, but his solution to that is not to breathe, but to get his flat broad tongue lapping over Jongin’s hole, where he’s steadily pulsing out more slick, he’s so fucking turned on, so fucking wet. Kyungsoo groans, a deep rumble from the back of his throat that makes Jongin feel like he’s doing perfect, just from sitting here and getting licked out. 

Kyungsoo flicks his tongue against Jongin’s hole, fast and sinful movements that make Jongin cry out and tighten his thighs around Kyungsoo’s head, pulling him in and keeping him right where Jongin needs him. “Alpha,” Jongin babbles, the label only partially for Kyungsoo’s benefit, “_alpha_, fuck, oh my God, yes, _yes_, oh my G—“ cut off when Kyungsoo whines and tries pushing his tongue into Jongin’s cunt. Fuck. Fuck. Of course Jongin takes it, loosened up by Kyungsoo’s fingers, but the pressure makes him go out of his mind, it does, Jongin cannot believe Kyungsoo is this good at it even in rut. 

He really does lose it when Kyungsoo curls his tongue and fucks it further in, sharp little stabs of the soft flesh into Jongin’s drenched hole, so fucking good every time, fuck, what the fuck— Jongin falls back on the bed, he no longer has the strength to hold himself up; all there exists around him is the sharp pleasure across his body, weakening his back and hips, like he’s boneless, like he will fall apart, even as he rides Kyungsoo’s face, trying to get more and more, even though it’s too much. He’s embarrassed by the desperate noises coaxed out of him, and brings a fist up to bite into, muffling his voice. It doesn’t—help much. 

Kyungsoo slaps the side of his thigh and pulls back just enough to snarl, “no,” before forcing his tongue back all the way inside, licking Jongin out with slick all over his face. 

“Ah,” Jongin cries out, listening and moving his hand to tighten in his own hair instead, a few strands sacrificed to the grip as his orgasm begins to build in his belly, that tight greedy curl of maxed pleasure. His thighs fall apart and his scent changes, headier, makes Kyungsoo moan and try to get closer. Holy fuck. His slick gets thicker as he comes, and his thighs shake so bad, he’s gonna fall apart, he’s gonna fall apart, Jesus fucking Christ is he supposed to die during mating, that can’t be—even the sounds he makes sound painful to his own ears, a keening wail that finally finally finally—“fuck, hyung, fuck, oh God fuck—“ breaks off as he comes on his belly and Kyungsoo’s tongue, wet everywhere. He goes boneless. His veins feel sparked. 

“Oh my God,” Jongin manages. 

Kyungsoo pops his head up, lips and chin wet with Jongin’s slick. He wipes his mouth with the back of his palm, which makes Jongin shudder again with aftershocks. “‘S good?” Kyungsoo asks. He licks his lips. 

“It’s perfect, honey.” Jongin moans, back arching up into the fizzling pleasure. He makes grabby hands and taps Kyungsoo’s back with his heel. “C’mere.” 

Jongin scoots up on the bed, and Kyungsoo meets him there, leaning over Jongin on his elbows for maybe half a second before dropping all his weight on Jongin and burying his face in his neck, nipping at his mating gland and rutting into Jongin’s belly, like he needs to maintain sensation at all possible points. His boxers are sticky. “Did you come?” Jongin asks. Kyungsoo nods. Jongin traces shapes on Kyungsoo’s back and smiles, loose and hazy. “You gonna come in me?”

“So much,” Kyungsoo slurs. Everything he says is slurred now, like getting it out is a battle around his arousal and extended fangs, but he still has to let Jongin know, “gonna knot you, gonna—“ He swallows, and Jongin hears the wetness of saliva. “Gonna breed you, wanna.”

Jongin pulses more slick, and bites his bottom lip. “I want you to. C’mon, boxers off.”

Kyungsoo slides into him with a hurt, low noise. His cock is thick and heavy inside of Jongin, and it makes Jongin moan, still feeling the stretch and burn even after Kyungsoo prepped and licked him out.

“Good,” Kyungsoo says, petting Jongin’s sides, still fixated on kissing his neck, his fangs sharp and tight on Jongin’s skin. “Good, love—love you.”

Jongin palms the back of Kyungsoo’s skull, and turns his head for a kiss, even though their mouths are too loose for it to be any good. It’s still good. “You still gonna fuck me until I’m sloppy wet and crying?” Jongin murmurs against his lips. 

Kyungsoo groans and increases his pace, fucking in fast into Jongin’s hole, bracing himself up on his elbows for better control. His balls are fat and full, and the sweat-sticky slap of them on Jongin’s ass is a pleasure point on its own. Jongin’s cock swells back up on his stomach, and Kyungsoo moans into his mouth when it twitches up onto Kyungsoo’s skin. 

It feels wasteful, that Jongin hasn’t been getting fucked by Kyungsoo all this time. Years of friendship, years of living together, and Jongin only now gets this. Even when they hooked up the past few weeks, Kyungsoo focused more on Jongin than himself. Jongin wants to make this as good for Kyungsoo, even if all that means for most of rut is lying pliant and taking it. 

And man, does he take it. Jongin is still sated from his previous orgasm, so he must not make as much noise as Kyungsoo wants, because Kyungsoo looks up with his red eyes and low voice and asks, “is it not good?”

“It’s good,” Jongin sighs. 

“Gonna make it better,” Kyungsoo says. He pulls out and has Jongin turn over into his knees, face down into his pillow, and slams in, all of his cock stretching Jongin out at once. Okay, maybe Jongin was wrong. Maybe it was just a tease before, maybe Kyungsoo’s rut hadn’t hit full blast, because this—Jesus Christ, this—_this_ is getting fucked. 

“Pretty omega,” Kyungsoo snarls, fingers digging bruises into Jongin’s hips, and Jongin looks forward to pressing on them for days to come, make sure they stay sore. Right now, all he can focus on is the endless give of Kyungsoo’s cock into his prostate, so fucking good it aches. He’s not used to being called omega during sex, much less with that tone and this animal fuck, but he likes it, he thinks, he likes knowing that his mate thinks he’s a pretty omega, likes knowing that all Kyungsoo cares about right now is whether he can, “give my perfect omega all the cock he wants.”

Jongin cries out into pillow, muffled sounds that resonate through the room and become increasingly dirty, as Kyungsoo punches high sounds out of his throat with every brutal fuck in. There’s no break, no chance to calm down, Kyungsoo just ruts nonstop into Jongin’s hole, the wet squelch of slick fucked in and running down Jongin’s ass and thighs. “Hyung,” Jongin whines, “hyung, _ah_, I, I,” and chokes on his spit when Kyungsoo’s knot begins to swell, meaner thrusts required to get all of it inside. If Jongin was in heat, he’d pass out. He might still pass out. 

“Gotta take all my cock in your little hole,” Kyungsoo grunts. “Know you can take it, gonna _make_ you take it, gonna make,” and cuts off with a long whine when Jongin arches his back and tightens around him. 

Jongin turns to his cheek, panting, and goads, “you gonna breed me, alpha?” and feels bone-deep satisfaction when Kyungsoo snarls again and drops all his weight, making Jongin collapse flat on his belly with a huff of breath, and jackrabbits into Jongin’s cunt until Jongin’s drooling into the cotton and begging for more, over and over, begging Kyungsoo not to stop until he knots and breeds Jongin with all the seed his body will give. 

“Gonna,” Kyungsoo says mindlessly, “gonna—“ and then his knot grows too big and he has to shove it all the way into Jongin’s tight hole with a grunt, nosing at Jongin’s mating gland while his hips grind filthy circles in his ass. Jongin’s eyes water around the burn of Kyungsoo’s knot, even bigger than he expected, and he curls his toes as he tries not to come before his alpha. 

“Do it,” Jongin begs, “bite me, mate me, do it, _please_,” and Kyungsoo is just. He’s just the perfect alpha, how he shushes Jongin and runs the sharp edge of his fangs on the sensitive swell, how he bites down the second his knot catches and he starts to spurt hot, thick nut deep inside, sucking on the swollen flesh with desperation and low, needy grunts, dick shoved so far in that Jongin’s hole aches, already feeling sore and stuffed and full around his alpha’s fat knot. Jongin doesn’t need anything more to come. He is so fucking full, Jesus fuck, his rim raw and undoubtedly swollen, and the wash of endorphins at being knotted and mated, the steady pulse of seed pumped into his needy body, the way Kyungsoo’s seed dribbles out around his hole—all of it is too much. He whines his way through his orgasm, louder when Kyungsoo groans, “pretty little knotwhore, gonna breed you ‘til it takes,” into his neck, which, fuck, caps this as the hottest experience of Jongin’s life. 

-

It’s different but comforting to be the one taking care of Kyungsoo, ordering from _Mr. Pizza_ on the evening of the second day and requesting an omega delivery person, paying at the door with Kyungsoo pressed right along his back and scenting the still sore mating bite. Jongin smiles at the delivery person, and only wants to rip their throat out a little for seeing just the top of his alpha’s head. Lucky for them that Jongin hides most of Kyungsoo’s body. He’d hate to get blood on the welcome mat. 

Kyungsoo doesn’t even want to eat, instead sucks on Jongin’s shoulder on the bed and gropes his thighs, trying to spread them apart, whining when Jongin won’t take the boxers off so that Kyungsoo can fuck him again. 

“Eat two slices and I’ll let you knot me while I’m still sore,” Jongin says. “At a time,” Jongin adds, amused when Kyungsoo grabs two slices at once. Kyungsoo scowls at him, but puts one down. He wouldn’t risk Jongin’s promise. He learned fast how much Kyungsoo likes that. It might be that Jongin makes more noise, so sensitive and spasming around the wide stretch of Kyungsoo’s dick; it might just be the alpha awareness that he gets to knot again while Jongin is still recovering from the last one. It makes Kyungsoo come twice as fast, little technique as he ruts fast with a nonstop whine. It’s intoxicating. Even when Jongin is too sensitive to come again, just the use is perfect. 

Jongin stinks, and there’s come leaking out of him, but Kyungsoo loves it, leaning his head on Jongin’s shoulder as he eats. “Eat a third slice and you can knot my mouth,” Jongin says. Kyungsoo chokes on a bite. Jongin smiles and pats his back.

-

Jongin saves the blowjob for the latest stage of rut, when Kyungsoo is more in control of himself, exhausted and reverent and murmuring soft, sweet things when they fuck missionary. The mating bite makes him so attuned to Kyungsoo’s state of mind and feelings. Mates can’t hear each others’ thoughts, per se, especially not before the mating cycle is over, but some things project loud and clear. There’s a more complex sense of love emanating from Kyungsoo, and it makes Jongin feel necessary and important, something more than scent marking. He hears wisps of thought, _baby_ and _sweetheart_ and _pretty omega_ when they’re half-conscious and locked together; pride when Jongin eats the leftover musubi and rice, a filthier pride when Jongin comes on himself twice while riding Kyungsoo and grinds down on his knot with desperate, breathy moans. It takes a lot for an alpha to be on their back during rut, so Jongin feels immeasurable delight that Kyungsoo trusts him that instinctively. 

When Jongin wakes up in the middle of the night on the third day, Kyungsoo is dozing, mouth parted gently and eyelashes pretty on his cheeks. Jongin has the most beautiful mate. Jongin scratches his nail down Kyungsoo’s thigh, light, just enough to get him to open his eyes, watch as Jongin crawls under the comforter to lay at Kyungsoo’s feet, mouth poised above his crotch.

Kyungsoo moans when Jongin sucks the fat head into his mouth, and rests his hands on Jongin’s scalp. Most of Jongin’s body is under the blanket, but he makes sure Kyungsoo can see neck up, see how Jongin works his mouth down and off his dick, filling his mouth with the hot musk until Kyungsoo is swollen and arching his hips into his mouth. 

This is not so much a blowjob for skill. Kyungsoo will come fast, since it’s been a few hours since they last fucked, but Jongin still puts his all into it, even if that all is just a loose jaw and wet mouth. He loves how it feels to get all of Kyungsoo’s cock inside his mouth. There’s something incredibly satisfying about taking his alpha down his throat, the way Kyungsoo grunts when Jongin chokes on the weight, how chapped and sore Jongin’s lips will be all day. He anticipates getting Kyungsoo hard while applying chapstick. 

“Oh God,” Kyungsoo groans, “oh God, you’re so good,” his fingers flexing in Jongin’s hair. Jongin tongues the slit, salty and thick precome filling his mouth, and has to grasp the sheets to continue around the sharp cut of arousal inside. He’s so wet already, just from this. 

“Can I, shit, can I knot your—“ Kyungsoo starts, but Jongin hums yes before he finishes his sentence, and the added sensation must help because Kyungsoo breaks off with a swear and pushes his hips up, his pretty neck thrown back while Jongin gags around him. Predictably short—Kyungsoo’s knot begins to swell in Jongin’s mouth, and there’s a split moment of panic right before Jongin manages to relax his jaw and cradle his cheek on Kyungsoo’s thigh. He’s comfortable enough not to want to move away, and he lets Kyungsoo grow on his tongue, eyes half-closed as Kyungsoo knots his mouth. Jongin never imagined himself as the type of omega who wants this. It’s fine, he knows, that other people do, so long as it’s not in Jongin’s home with his alpha, but he never thought— Well, there are a lot of new discoveries this week. This one feels just as natural. 

_I’m in love with him,_ Jongin thinks to himself, and hopes the wisps project to Kyungsoo._ I love you, I’m in love with you_. Kyungsoo pulses come down Jongin’s throat, and groans as he strokes Jongin’s eyebrows. _...you too_, he feels, something more than his own thoughts. 

“Wish I could keep you here forever,” Kyungsoo says, soft and reverent. “Wanna always be mating you.”

Jongin’s eyelashes flutter. Makes him feel used, jaw stretched sore, teeth hurting in his mouth, while Kyungsoo pumps seed in his mouth. This is—to do this, like it’s natural for Kyungsoo to knot his mouth, and, like, maybe it is, maybe it’s—

Oh, he wants to stay here forever. 

“I bet you do,” Kyungsoo murmurs, thumb pressed behind Jongin’s ear. Jongin gets enough air, but the restriction makes it thinner. He has to focus on breathing. Every inhale is conscious. It makes him zone off, where the two measurable features of his present existence are his careful, timed breaths, and the swell of release splattering his deep down his throat. Kyungsoo makes a place for himself in Jongin, and it feels transcendent. 

-

He’s not glowing when Kyungsoo is done, because it takes, like, five straight minutes of Kyungsoo massaging his jaw before he can close it. Shit, his mouth hurts. He glares at Kyungsoo, wants to cut his knot off or curse him out, but all his focus is on not breaking his jaw. Punching Kyungsoo in the jaw will be more satisfying than cursing him out. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Kyungsoo says, even though his eyes are still hazy with satisfaction. He pulls Jongin up by the armpit, and presses a gentle kiss to his jaw, and then rubs his thumb over Jongin’s mating bite, and that releases a wave of endorphins so strong Jongin almost knocks out, and his jaw loses enough tension that he can close his mouth, teeth clacking together against the much reduced pain. Jongin moans and hides his face in Kyungsoo’s neck, inhaling the soft citrus tang of his alpha. 

“This is nice,” Kyungsoo says. Yeah, Jongin thinks, it is. 

-

Kyungsoo got creative during rut, so when it fades out, they spend two hours cleaning most of the furniture, one of the kitchen counters from when he evidently thought he’d die if he waited thirty more seconds to eat Jongin out. Jongin is a simple man. Who was he to argue? 

“Am I gonna get another heat next month since I didn’t bite you?” Jongin calls out, wiping down their dining table with soap and bleach. 

“Maybe,” Kyungsoo says. He’s working on laundry, so Jongin can’t see his face behind the bundle of bedding pulled from the dryer. “Ask Sehun, he’ll know.”

Jongin grimaces begins his face mask. “Ugh, I don’t even wanna give him or Baekhyun the satisfaction of being right. Hyung, they’re gonna be so unbearable.” 

“Sehunnie won’t be so bad,” Kyungsoo says from Jongin’s room. “Baekhyun means well.”

“Yeah, in front of you, Sehun will be an angel, and then he’ll slowly break me down when you leave.” 

Kyungsoo comes back to the front rooms, and stops by the dining table with a second gallon of bleach. Kyungsoo pulls the mask down and leans up to kiss Jongin, chaste, like a reminder that he can. “Hey.”

Jongin smiles, wide and goofy. There should be cartoon hearts protruding from his eyes. “Hey.”

“You’re my best friend,” Kyungsoo says, eyes gleaming. “You know that?”

“Yeah,” Jongin says, and his next words feel heavy, like a promise he knows they’ll fulfill, “I do. I do know that.”


End file.
